PART II

6—
Praetorian Guards and the Patrimonial State

As we have seen, the dictator-generals of the nineteenth century in Latin America were rarely professional military men. We use the Latin American term "caudillo" for them, but it is more accurate to call them "political entrepreneurs" who made use of a variety of means—most often force, but also ideology—to further their enterprise of enrichment and personal power. The government belongs to the one who can seize control. The state is available for the taking because there is no state. The daring hacendado transforms his peons into soldiers, and distributes Mauser rifles instead of pickaxes; "he harvests wheat in time of peace, gathers in men in time of war."^[1] A partisan chieftain calls himself "general" and if he is lucky he becomes one of the heavy-handed patriarchs whose picturesque tales loom large in the history of the continent.

In Venezuela in the twentieth century, "General" Juan Vicente Gomez waited for the right moment to seize power from his comrade Cipriano Castro after serving as his faithful second in command, and allowed the petroleum whirlwind to modernize the country and the state. This precocious native of the Andes administered his family's hacienda in Tachira on the Colombian frontier at the age of fifteen. He distrusted the army and only reluctantly accepted the foreign military missions, which he played off against each other. He seems to have

believed—correctly—that educated officers and semiautonomous institutionalized armed forces were in contradiction to his rude personal style of government. Men who had a little bit of power and owed him nothing were potentially dangerous. He knew so well who his adversaries were that with the help of petroleum he died in his bed in 1935 after twenty-seven years as dictator.

However, the confusion, or least the customary identification, of dictators with generals does not come only from the fact that civilian despots in the tropics don gold braid. It is true that repressive and narrowly personalized tyrannies have used the army as their instruments, and its officers have been their principal beneficiaries. The military pronunciamento has become a modernized form of political entrepreneurship. The professionalization and bureaucratization of the army have made personal uprisings more and more difficult, but nevertheless the coup has made a deep impression on the collective memory. In addition a military neocaudillismo has appeared in certain national and organizational circumstances, the analysis of which is helpful in comprehending the nature of military power.

We also tend to identify dictators with generals in the apparently disorganized state of the politics of the continent because there is no fundamental difference between the governing style of the caudillos in uniform and that of their civilian counterparts. The institutional element is almost absent in a number of cases in the nineteenth century in which the general-presidents seem to have deliberately ignored the impersonal objective norms that govern the functioning of the civilian and military bureaucracies. Among the most flamboyant and baroque dictatorships were those that permitted the accession to power through a coup by an officer who had grown old in the military service. General Hernández Martínez in El Salvador and General Ubico in Guatemala in no way yield to their nonmilitary colleagues in neighboring countries or earlier regimes. The Salvadoran general who was responsible for the massacre of some thirty thousand peasants in 1932 governed that tiny republic of the Central American isthmus from 1931 to 1944 to the profit of the large landholders, and

made notable contributions to the "unknown mythology of Central American tyranny."^[2] Not sparing those who opposed him, this convinced theosophist claimed that in fact it was more criminal to kill an ant than a man, since the man could become reincarnated. At the time that Roosevelt was giving his fireside chats on the goals of the New Deal, this magician general initiated radio programs on spiritualism in which he responded personally to the questions of the listeners concerning the transmigration of souls and miraculous cures for all ailments.

We do not intend to focus on these more or less extreme examples of political despotism, nor are we trying to single out the most "uncivilized" tyrants in this century. However, we would like to use some of the more recent and politically significant examples to examine a certain type of authoritarianism. In a word, we seek to understand how the armed forces can support personal, and even family, dictatorships and the degree to which one can describe patrimonial tyrannies as military regimes. What are their real relations with the army? How do such dictatorships maintain themselves after having been established? What is the role of the military factor and of other power resources under their control? What is the degree of loyalty that the armed forces have to them, and how is their reliability assured? If the nation's military have become the praetorian guard of a despot, what are the causes of that transformation and what appear to be its limits?

We begin obviously with an analysis of the "Sultanates" of the Caribbean where archetypal tyrannies—some of which have only recently ended—arose within the guards or the "apolitical and nonpartisan" armies established by the American marines in the course of de facto protectorates. The Somoza dynasty in Nicaragua, the Trujillo despotism in the Dominican Republic, and the authoritarian presidencies of Batista in Cuba nevertheless possess relatively distinct characteristics and very specific military components. We will then see how certain personalist authoritarian regimes in South America illustrate the particular mechanisms of power characteristic of governments in which the army is strongly statist in orientation.

Nicaragua: The Dynasty and Its Guardians

Having recently become a politician in the Liberal party, Anastasio Somoza García—"Tacho" to his friends and protectors as well as to his enemies—became Jefe Director of the National Guard that had been set up by the Yankee occupier because he spoke English perfectly and knew how to please. Stimson, the representative of Calvin Coolidge in Nicaragua, described him as "open and friendly."^[3] Tacho was, it is true, as jovial and optimistic as his son and successor, "Tachito," was sinister and irritable. As for the son, he was a genuine military man, having graduated from West Point. One of his enemies said of him, "Khaki is like a second skin for him."^[4] In contrast, Tacho, the first Somoza, was an authentic civilian. When he received the command of the guard, the only activity of that substitute force was to hunt down the libertador Sandino, an action in which the first Somoza did not participate. Nevertheless, it was Sandino and the Sandinista menace that allowed him to assure himself the loyalty of that new army. With consummate ability Somoza was able to utilize the fear of the "general of free men" to unite that inglorious force behind him. And if—no doubt because of the pressure from his officers who feared the revenge of the head of the "crazy little army,"—he agreed to the traitorous assassination of Sandino without being aware of how unpopular that act would be for his future political career, it was no doubt because he understood that with the murder of the hero he signed a veritable blood pact with his officers and with the guard as a whole. By 1936 the way to power was open to him; his control of the guard was total, thanks especially to his enemies who denounced his crime and his ambition and identified him completely with his men. President Juan B. Sacasa, a relative of Somoza's by marriage, became involved in a veritable contest with the "Jefe Director" with the National Guard as the prize. The president tried in vain to control the guard as mandated by the constitution, while Somoza took pains to deflect and undermine him by placing reliable men in all the command positions.

The result of that confrontation was that Somoza, after re-

moving Sacasa by a judicious use of force, became the only candidate in presidential elections that were supervised by the National Guard. He won the election despite the desperate appeals of the former president and his political allies to the American authorities, who nevertheless allowed the election to take place. The Department of State and the War Department had such confidence in their creature that they were not upset by the fascist-style populism that the candidate exhibited during his campaign. As paramilitary "blue shirts" raised their fists in the streets of Managua, the Somocista campaign speeches were happy to compare the Jefe Director to Hitler or Mussolini.^[5] Rare, however, were the American diplomats such as Bliss Lane, who understood that the National Guard was not the apolitical gendarmerie that they had imagined, but rather an "American-Nicaraguan hybrid" that would henceforth constitute one of the "principal obstacles to the progress of Nicaragua."^[6]

Thus the longest-ruling Latin American dictatorship was born. (The Somoza family reigned over the country for no less than forty-three years, from 1936 until 1979.) The death of the dictator, assassinated by an opponent in 1956, did not produce the end of the dictatorship; his oldest son, Luis, took over his father's responsibilities, with the aid of his brother, Anastasio (Tachito), who commanded the guard and then assumed supreme power in his turn until he was overthrown by the Sandinista insurrection—not without the hope that his son, an officer of the guard, would take over the family business. Thus, it is a family dynasty that we are discussing, and not politics in the modern sense.

The first Somoza, the founder of the dynasty, belonged to a middle-class family and inherited a badly managed coffee plantation. He himself had made his living in different ways, including as a used car salesman in the United States, as an inspector of public latrines (for the Rockefeller Foundation), and as a coffee grower. It was also said that he had tried his luck at gambling and at counterfeiting American currency.^[7] In any case, his fortune was established in 1956 at some $ 60 million, and the family appeared to be the largest landholder in the country: 51 cattleraising ranches and 46 coffee plantations belonged to him, as well as properties in nearby countries such as neighboring Costa

Rica and as far away as Mexico, not to mention 48 properties in Managua. It was rumored that 10 percent of the arable land in Nicaragua belonged to him and his industrial interests were already very diversified. The heirs of the first Somoza did not let the family empire decline. It is estimated that the Somoza fortune in 1979 was between $ 500 and 600 million and included a fifth of the cultivatable land in the country, the 26 largest industrial companies, and interests in 120 corporations. With the 8 biggest cane plantations in the country and several refineries, the Somozas were the largest producers of sugar and had a monopoly on alcohol; they had partial control of bananas, meat, salt, vegetable oils, and a monopoly on pasteurized milk. The Somozas, for whom there was no such thing as a small profit, were also the representatives of Mercedes and other European automobile companies in their fiefdom; they owned the only national air line (LANICA), the shipping companies, and had major shares in the textile and cement industries. Their holdings were in the hands of a bank that belonged to them and they controlled a savings and loan company that was concerned with building construction (CAPSA).^[8] This list is incomplete. We should emphasize that the precise and full extent of the business of the clan is not known and note that certain American business groups frequently worked with the family companies. United Fruit and the eccentric billionaire Howard Hughes were often associated with the Somoza enterprises. However, one should add that because of the Somocista domination, many foreign countries preferred to invest in Nicaragua's neighbors.

More interesting, no doubt, are the methods used to acquire these riches. It is evident that it was not unremitting labor and savings that made it possible, but rather extortion, racketeering, violence, and fraud of all kinds. The origin of the family's control of national wealth was to be found in contraband in gold and imported products, the purchase at a low price of herds that had already been endangered, or of enterprises that had been put into financial difficulty by the government or by political friends of the dictator. Intimidation and bureaucratic or physical harassment evidently played a considerable role in the amassing of the family fortune. The first Somoza also had the custom of collecting personal commissions on foreign trade and on less

respectable activities: gambling, prostitution, and smuggling. The war permitted him to seize the properties of German citizens, providing the initial nucleus of his landholdings.

In addition, the weakness of capitalist development in Nicaragua facilitated the control of Somoza. It was the state or its functional equivalent that, in a period when statism did not yet have a bad name, replaced a deficient private sector in the areas of banking and public services. Electricity, hospitals, railroads, and water companies were state companies in which the clan took care to place near or distant relatives, thus furthering the business interests of the group by putting public enterprises at the service of the private interests of the dictatorship. This confusion between the state and the interests of the family gave a certain foundation to the humorous claim of the last Somoza that since the time of his father Nicaragua had been "a socialist state."^[9] In fact it was precisely the insatiable cupidity of the Somocista dynasty that produced its defeat.

The cotton boom in the 1950s and later the industrial opportunities provided by the Central American Common Market resulted in the formation of a local bourgeoisie that constituted several large groups, posing a threat to the clan.^[10] Their relations with the hydra-headed Somoza enterprises deteriorated rapidly after Tachito came to power in 1967. The bourgeoisie did not appreciate the special privileges that the Somoza businesses enjoyed or the brutal and unscrupulous "dynamism" that limited their own development. The dynasty's administration of the international aid that was given to the country after the 1972 earthquake increased that separation. Rather than dividing the bonanza and aiding private groups in difficulty, Somoza took total control of the aid and diverted the funds for his own profit, thus allowing the rewards of international solidarity to be pillaged by his friends and concealing the corruption imposed on his people. From then on the bourgeoisie joined the opposition; the dynasty no longer guaranteed the overall interests of the propertied classes. Despite its traditional capacity to maneuver, the family became isolated due to its excessive voraciousness and thus gave the Sandinista insurgents the leverage they needed to emerge from their marginal situation.

If the first Somoza had had some justification for saying,

"L'état, c'est moi," his personal control over the National Guard was not an inevitable result of the weakness of the organization of the Nicaraguan state. In fact the loyalty of the guard was assured by various factors that often had little to do with the military ethic. In the first place, ever since the assassination of Sandino had produced the image of the guard as a repressive and illegitimate body in national terms, the military forces and Somoza had locked themselves into a situation of reciprocal guarantees for mutual benefit. In addition, two sources of the guard's loyalty lay in its paternalism and the corruption of the officers. That army, so little statist and lacking in tradition, supported the family's power because the leadership enjoyed their privileges and benefited from the enrichment of the dynasty. There is no need to recall that since the time of the first Jefe Director family members were always at the top of the chain of command, and the Somozas never gave the direct and indirect control of the army to others. Tachito, son of the founder, did his military studies at West Point and it could be said that he was the only cadet to receive an army as a graduation present. Once he became dictator, his half-brother, José, supervised the guard command directly, while his son, Tachito II, a graduate of American schools who had been promoted to the rank of captain for "services rendered to the country" after the 1972 earthquake, commanded the elite antiguerrilla troops.

Beginning in 1967, the year when the last Somoza actually became president, the government appeared to be simply an extension of the army. The dictatorship, faced with internal and external difficulties, became militarized, but in its own special way. As a symbol of the times, the presidential palace, which was perched on the Tiscapa Hill, became a barracks of the guard overlooking Managua in a quasi-feudal manner. The government, the army, and the family became one. Private apartments, offices, and military encampments revealed the nature of power. While denunciations and mutual espionage were abundantly utilized to prevent military conspiracies, loyalty depended on extrainstitutional factors. The Somoza who directed the guard acted more as a "godfather" than the head of the general staff. The army that was also the police force and administered the customs, borders, and prisons saw its functions multiply in the

course of the years. In addition, all the commands had additional revenues that the dictator ignored. Appointments to the most lucrative posts and illegal revenues completely out of line with modest officers' salaries were common within the guard, depending on the loyalty and servility of the officers. The military command of each city had its price. The commander of Chinandega was required to collect some $ 20,000 a month for the protection of bars, night clubs, gambling halls, gun permits, and various violations and fines.^[11] The head of the immigration service could make four times as much, as could the head of the central police services, a post with good connections. The officers on active service rapidly became millionaires in cordobas and in dollars—thanks to these semiofficial sources of income that were known to all. Since the dictator was able at any point to retire an officer into the reserve, the corps' economic situation was a direct function of their support for the clan. Similarly, once in retirement loyal officers could benefit from civil positions with revenues equal to those that they had had in the military. The businesses of the dynasty and the public corporations swarmed with retired senior officers who, although without particular competence, occupied the high-level positions. One observer remarked a few days before the fall of the regime that half the members of the board of directors of the national bank were retired officers, "whose knowledge of banking would no doubt fit on the head of a pin."^[12]

This complex network of military and bureaucratic factors, of economic interest and pure and simple gangsterism, all stimulated and controlled by the government, appeared to be one of the foundations of the Somoza system. The soldiers, a majority of them only semiliterate, were the first victims of the corruption of the officers: they were badly clothed and fed as a result of the "commissions" collected by their officers. An officer who deserted from the guard claims that they also had inferior military supplies because of kickbacks to those responsible for military purchases.^[13] However, for the troops military paternalism took the place of equity and served to reinforce group loyalty. During the last campaigns against the Sandinistas, the boots worn by the guard fell apart in the first rainstorm. Somoza's son, Tachito II, as a captain, distributed new

jungle boots made in the United States as a Christmas present! The Somozas knew the private and family problems of the soldiers, and on their part they could ask for personal assistance in case of need. There was nothing less bureaucratic and impersonal. These soldiers were assured that Somoza "would not let them down." Enlisted men and low-level officers had easy access to the services of the presidential "bunker" and to the head of the clan in violation of military hierarchy and etiquette, because they were assigned to spy on their superiors. Institutional orders or rules had no binding power over the president. The hierarchy that counted was not that of seniority and merit, but the links between the men and the person of the dictator and his family. Officers and politicians responded by denouncing the violations of the principles of discipline. This apparently "military" dictatorship thus demilitarized the army by corrupting it and by violating the hierarchical chain of command. The Nicaraguan National Guard was not an army like the others.

Still, it would be wrong to believe because of the bloody and indiscriminate repression that accompanied the last days of the regime in 1979 that the reign of the Somozas was only maintained by the terror imposed by the praetorian guards. Whereas it is clear that the dictatorship resorted to a high level of violence, it is not likely that one could terrorize a whole people for nearly forty-five years, and besides, repression alone does not explain why the dynasty was able to survive the death of the tyrant who created the system. This is true even though in 1956, after the assassination of the elder Somoza, the wave of repression that followed was particularly intense in order to discourage any hint of opposition. It was at this time that the patrimonial character of the system appeared most crudely. Not only did the two sons of the dictator carry out military repression, but the jails in the presidential palace were filled with distinguished prisoners who were subjected to torture in long interrogation sessions in which Tacho II, the chief of the guard, personally participated.^[14] It can be said that official political violence never ceased from the time of the electoral campaign of 1967 in which the Somoza candidate (Anastasio Somoza Debayle, still in power in 1979) won a highly disputed

election thanks to fraud and the utilization of paramilitary groups to massacre demonstrators who favored his opponent.

In fact, the dynasty made use of other political resources. The astuteness of the first Somoza undoubtedly played a role,^[15] but specifically political and social methods should be mentioned. Despite his common origins and his seizure of power, the elder Somoza acquired a certain social legitimacy within the Nicaraguan ruling class by marriage. He was related in that way to the Debayle and Sacasa families, that is, to the Liberal oligarchy. In these societies, where patronage plays an important role, this was a valuable asset. Those under obligation to, or unconditional supporters of, the Debayle family thus supported the dictatorship for reasons that had little to do with its politics. In addition, the dictatorship knew how to utilize the traditional twoparty system. Somoza, when he took control of the Liberal party with which he was allied politically and socially, acquired a network of followers and political control that was parallel to that of the army. Paradoxically, the fact that the Conservative party, the enemy of the Liberals, had been closely linked to the United States since Díaz helped to undermine the credibility of the opposition. That weakness, as well as the characteristics of the national ruling class, helped to produce a number of arrangements between the opposition and the dictatorship that periodically legitimized the power of Somoza. Indeed, the regime maintained a façade of constitutionality that was carefully preserved despite some problems of adjustment when the political course followed by the family was particularly irregular.

The first Somoza, who was assassinated while distributing free drinks during a workers' club festival in León, knew how to play the populist role in order to stay in power. After receiving the unexpected support of the Communist party at the end of the Second World War, after he had aligned his country docilely with the United States, Tacho overcame the serious postwar crisis that was fatal to his neighbors, Ubico and Hernández Martínez, by adopting social welfare measures that divided his opposition. At that time the government created official trade unions and decreed a very advanced labor code that was to be applied in particular to the enterprises owned by opponents of the regime.

Nevertheless, under pressure from the United States, Somoza decided to hand over power in 1947. Argüello, his carefully chosen successor, was removed four weeks later when the new president indicated that he wished to free himself of the control of his predecessor—who still commanded the guard. Argüello's puppet successor lasted three months, at which point Tacho changed the constitution and "elected" his uncle, Victor Román Reyes, who remained as president until his death in 1950. Tired of these maneuvers, the dictator again changed the constitution and had himself elected for six years by the Congress after an agreement with the Conservative party. At his death, Luis, who seemed to have some ability for politics, was elected president. When Luis died in 1963 it seems that American pressure—under the Kennedy administration in the period of the Alliance for Progress—prevented Tachito from ascending the throne in his turn. A confederate, René Schick, occupied the presidency. Schick tried to broaden the base of the family's power, bringing the country a period of liberalization. Waiting no longer, the impetuous general who had been the favorite son, it was said, of the assassinated patriarch, had himself elected president in 1967. Although he had fewer votes than his Conservative opponent, partisan vote-counters were sufficient under the Somozas to reverse the results.^[16] In 1970 a new agreement with the Conservatives restored the facade of democracy to the system. Somoza was replaced by a provisional triumvirate without power until the December 1972 earthquake that led the general to place himself patriotically at the head of the National Disaster Committee and to use that occasion to achieve total power.

Everyone was aware of how much the clan owed to the United States. Tachito, after he was let down by his protector in 1978, said much about the services he had rendered in return for U.S. favor. Yet we should not believe that the successive dictators were puppets in the hands of the United States or simple instruments for its purposes. If this had been the case there is no doubt that a military coup d'état at the appropriate time would have deposed the unattractive U.S. partner. In fact, Somoza and the Somozas knew how to make use of the United States to maintain their power and to disarm their internal and external enemies. Besides, since relations with the great protec-

tor were a decisive political resource, the family itself made sure of the diplomatic representation in Washington. Ambassador Sevilla Sacasa, the son-in-law of Tacho and brother-in-law of Tachito, remained as the representative to the authorities of the metropole for practically the entire duration of the dynasty, and even became the dean of the diplomatic corps in Washington. In addition, to further defend their interests the Somozas maintained a lobby in Washington that was, however, more costly than effective. In 1975 the general spent an official figure of $ 500,000 to retain the favor of the Americans.^[17] A former Congressman from Florida, N. Cramer, and the former secretary of the navy, Fred Korth, were his principal lawyers, while representatives John Murphy of New York and Charles Wilson of Texas could secure the support, when necessary, of several dozen members of Congress. The United States ambassadors, far from acting as proconsuls in Managua, often appeared to be employees or business partners of the clan that they defended at the Department of State. The famous Ambassador Whelan, "Tom" to his friend, Tacho, and a "real father" in the words of Tachito, through his unconditional support for the dictatorship acted to undermine the Good Neighbor Policy of F. D. Roosevelt. More recently, Turner Shelton, ambassador to Managua under Nixon, gave unlimited support to the Somozas in open disagreement with the more prudent analyses of the State Department and the White House.^[18]

The hereditary dictatorship of the Somozas thus seems to demonstrate more the structure and conduct of the Cosa Nostra in Sicily or New York than the values and mentality of the military. It is not without significance, however, that a certain type of armed force was able to produce this kind of regime and that it was not the only one of its kind.

The Dominican Republic: The Generalissimo and the Law of the "Prime Combatant"

The arrival in power of Rafael Leónidas Trujillo, head of the Dominican army thanks to the U.S. Marine Corps, was not very

different in fact from that of Somoza. In the exercise of power he also acted in ways that were strangely parallel. Head of a clan and an entrepreneur, he too relied for support on the army from which he had come, and his regime was marked by the most obvious gangsterism. Having risen very rapidly from within to the head of the army created by the United States, Trujillo ran for the presidency and was elected in 1930 without opposition after a campaign of terror carried out by paramilitary groups that supported him. From that time on a single caudillo was to replace the many unstable caudillos of the period before the American occupation. Like them, the generalissimo had his own private army, but this time it was the national army.

Again like Somoza, Trujillo took pains to respect a certain constitutional legality, yielding the presidency to straw men and loyal servants. In 1938 Jacinto Peynado succeeded him and Manuel Troncoso completed Peynado's term after his death. Following a new direct election in 1942, Trujillo named his brother Hector to the presidency for a ten-year term. When he resigned in 1960 he was replaced by Joaquín Balaguer, a faithful follower who owed everything to him. When Trujillo retired from civilian power, he retained control of the military. He served as minister of war under Troncoso, and had himself named commander in chief of the armed forces by his brother in 1952.

Also like the Somozas, Trujillo had a sense of family and the upper ranks of the army were filled with his relatives, many of whom were picturesque if not eccentric. Among his brothers, Hector was chief of the general staff and minister of war, Aníbal was also chief of staff, Virgilio carried out the sensitive functions of minister of the interior, and Arismendi was divisional general. His brothers-in-law José García and Josí Román Fernandez, and his nephews José García Trujillo and Virgilio Garciá Trujillo, were generals or superior officers and held important commands. As to his sons, one can say that they were officers from birth. Rhadames was an honorary commander at the time when children play games, and the future playboy, Ramfis, was a brigadier general at nine years of age.^[19] There were several dozen relatives of the Trujillo family in the upper ranks of the army.

The control of "the Benefactor" over the Dominican economy was no less complete than that of the Somoza clan on Nicaragua. Estimates suggest that Trujillo owned 50 percent of the arable land, and 119 enterprises representing 80 percent of the business capital of the capital city, renamed Ciudad Trujillo. It is necessary to allow for partisan exaggeration for argument's sake. But even allowing for overestimates on the part of his opponents, it is certain that Trujillo had a monopoly of the tobacco business (a state enterprise, but where does the state begin and the businesses of Trujillo end?), of pasteurized milk, a quasi-monopoly in sugar, and majority interests in two shipping companies. He had his own bank, and supervised the importation of pharmaceutical products. Around 1960, when the per capita income of the Dominican Republic was about $ 200 per person, the family fortune was estimated at between $ 500 and $ 800 million. Some observers have argued that this overwhelming domination of the national economy by Trujillo was an important means of political control. According to them, 70–75 percent of the salaried population worked in companies that were either owned by the state or by the Trujillo trust, and were thus at his mercy. The dictator could thus deprive any supposed opponent of his means of survival.^[20]

The privileges enjoyed by the army for whom Trujillo was really, if not the "prime combatant" at least "the Benefactor," and the corruption of the superior officers guaranteed the loyalty of the military. The domination of the upper ranks of the officer corps by the family reinforced the isolation of the military who were despised by the traditional leading classes; the local aristocracy regarded the officers as collaborators and Trujillo as a parvenu with whom they did not wish to associate socially. The Caribbean tyrant thus lacked the social and political legitimacy of Somoza. Police forces, both secret and public, were well developed, as well as a number of paramilitary bodies.^[21] In fact, the army was the creation of Trujillo and the opposition identified it with the despot. Trujillo's megalomania, his taste for large public works and gigantic infrastructure expenditures, did not displease the military, since they received their share. Nevertheless, the army was under a high degree of surveillance. He was not sure even of his brothers;

Virgilio and Arismendi, when they became too popular with the military or the police, were removed. Special inspectors spied on the barracks; and the army, which was organized for internal warfare against the opposition, was rigorously disarmed and its ammunition guarded in arsenals entrusted to reliable men. There were good reasons, it is true, for Trujillo to distrust his army.

Besides an impressive police apparatus and overwhelming domination of the economy, Trujillo had still other political resources at his disposal. The effectiveness of the cult of personality that he promoted among the inhabitants of Trujilloland (the capital and the highest point in the country bore his name) was dubious, as was the slogan, "Trujillo, you are our guiding star," and also the many titles of excellence bestowed on him by his adulators; however, the same was not true of nationalism. Trujillo used brutal methods and incessant propaganda to promote a feeling of national identity among inhabitants of the eastern half of the ancient island of Hispaniola against the mostly black and French-speaking citizens of the other half. For that purpose he did not hesitate to have fifteen thousand Haitian immigrants massacred in 1937. Clientelism in its modern and more traditional forms was also evident, not only among the elites, but also among the humble. The "loyalty days" organized by corporate groups were not only ritual obligations but also guaranteed Trujillo a certain audience of coopted leaders. Trujillo was also the godfather and patron of hundreds of children in the countryside whose families, by virtue of compadrazgo, felt under obligation to the dictator who also knew how to be generous to them on that occasion.

The existence of government trade unions from 1951 and an incipient single party that was actually an appendage of the patrimonial administration did not prevent this Caribbean version of oriental despotism from relying on the only coherent and permanent organization: the army. It was from within the army that the opponents came who on the night of 30 May 1961 were to assassinate the long-lasting tyrant. That assassination, which had the benefit of the technical collaboration of the CIA, was carried out by men close to Trujillo: businessmen, a senator and an ex-mayor of Ciudad Trujillo, generals and officers of the

personal general staff of the dictator. Earlier there had been signs of discontent and agitation in the army, and especially in the air force because of its dose relations with the United States. The assassination of Trujillo: around the time of the Bay of Pigs invasion that was supposed to put an end to the Castro regime, had the advantage in the eyes of the United States of maintaining an equal balance in the Caribbean between the two extremes, in accordance with the Kennedy policy. It is true that the activities of Trujillo in the region, notably the attempted assassination of the social democratic president of Venezuela, Romulo Betancourt, had led to sanctions by the Organization of American States, measures that were generally preliminaries to direct intervention by the United States.

The American political operation that had been almost too successful at the outset consisted in attempting to maintain "Trujillismo" without Trujillo, just as in 1979 Carter and his advisors tried in vain to establish a Somozaism without Somoza in Nicaragua. However, the election of a social democrat, Bosch, in 1963 produced a coup d'état by military elements loyal to the dictatorship who feared for their futures. This was followed by attempted countercoups by other sectors of the army and the landing of the marines in 1965. The intervention was ordered by Lyndon Johnson with the purpose of ending the civil war to the advantage of the pro-American forces and of a man who was a faithful follower of the United States after having been the same for Trujillo: Joaquín Balaguer. He had himself elected in 1966, was reelected fraudulently in 1970 and again in 1974, and would no doubt have succeeded in having himself reelected in 1978 with the support of the army, although the electoral verdict was unfavorable to him, if Washington, obsessed with democracy at that time, had not successfully threatened to take severe measures against such action. Had it not been for the intervention of the United States, Balaguer, the former minister of the dictator and Trujillo's vice president, was prepared to prolong the era of Trujillo in more "appropriate" forms—nearly twenty years after his death.

The army—divided in 1961 and torn apart in 1963 and 1965—was made up of strongly opposing tendencies: a neo-Trujilloist majority and a Castroite sector grouped around

Colonel Caamaño, the author of the 1965 uprising, who met his death after he landed on the Dominican coast in 1973. According to well-informed opinion,^[22] the army created by the dictator still has no function other than politics today, and, being made up of "officer factions in competition for the spoils of power," is therefore little motivated by ideological considerations. They are military predators rather than military reformers—as the about-face of the army chiefs between 1963 and 1965 proved—corresponding well with the nature of an army that antedated the state and was produced in the bosom of an unending tyranny.

Cuba: The Laughter of the Sergeant

In Cuba, the American sugar viceroyalty and semiprotectorate, the army that had been established by the United States was related to power in a very different way. Late decolonization had at least the advantage of providing the country with a political class as a result of the war of independence against Spain. The army left by the marines was not the only coherent group. The legitimacy provided by the independence effort gave importance to, among others, the veterans of 1895. In addition, when the army was created in 1906 it was in the hands of the Liberal party—as in Nicaragua—which named its loyal members as the generals. This is how Cuba acquired its first strongman, who came close to putting himself in power for a long time. With "General" Gerardo Machado the army entered decisively into the political life of Cuba. This noted Liberal from Santa Clara, a former butcher and horse thief,^[23] was named inspector-general of the army by President Gómez after the 1906 rebellion. After becoming a wealthy businessman—some say by acting as a front man for American companies—he was elected more or less honestly as president in 1924. His administration was characterized by great economic difficulties, but especially by its corruption and the suppression of civil liberties. Having promised the arrival of a golden age, Machado turned out to be a dictator who was inclined to assassinate his enemies, especially the leaders of the labor opposition. This disappointing president loved power, and despite his increas-

ing unpopularity, convened a constituent assembly that reelected him for six years in 1928. The establishment of the dictatorship, coinciding with the Great Depression, produced a wave of social and political agitation in many forms that seemed likely to result in a revolution.

Machado responded to the popular demonstrations by establishing repression and assassination as a veritable system of government. In 1929 he had the Communist leader, Juan Antonio Mella, assassinated. Between March 1930 and 1932, the leftdominated unions launched a series of strikes that were crushed; as a result, the university was closed, and the worker centers forbidden. The United States, where Roosevelt, who had just been elected, wished to change the country's Latin American policy, began to be disturbed by what appeared to be uncontrollable revolutionary actions. The White House sent a mediator to find a moderate "Cuban-style" solution and to guarantee a peaceful change of government. A high-level diplomat, Sumner Welles, was entrusted with this delicate proconsular mission. Welles, when faced with the terrorist actions of certain opposition groups and the rebellion of Machado against his protector, seemed inclined toward military intervention by the United States. Roosevelt did not favor this. The negotiations with the parties undertaken by the mediator needed only the departure of the dictator to be concluded. Because of the imminence of a U.S. intervention against Machado, who was defying the Americans and appealing to the people against Washington, the army deposed him in August 1933.

The military under Machado had been the special beneficiaries of the regime. The dictator gave them many civilian responsibilities, not hesitating to cite the army as an example for the whole Cuban administration. Defending himself against the charge that he was "militarizing the state" by placing military men in key posts in the civilian bureaucracy, Machado declared, "Supervision (by officers) of the administration does not represent a regular practice of government but a need of the moment. One can even say that far from militarizing the administration, this has made clear the excellent civic qualities of our officers."^[24] In this situation it is easy to understand that the army chiefs had an interest in avoiding an American intervention that would have placed them in an awkward position between their distant

protector and their immediate benefactor. Machado's overthrow thus was a response to a need for corporate defense.

The ending of the Machadato in September 1933, far from pacifying the social climate, produced a quasi-revolutionary situation. The unions took more radical action under the leadership of the Communist party. A wave of occupations of sugar mills was accompanied by the establishment of worker councils. Soon the Bolshevik slogan, "All power to the workers and peasants, supported by the soldiers and sailors" was proclaimed by "revolutionary elements."^[25] It was in this context—for corporate reasons, since there was a rumor that their wages were going to be cut—that the infantry noncommissioned officers rose up. Hostility and distrust of the officers that had been to the advantage of the earlier regime were not absent from the motives of the mutiny of Camp Columbia. At this point the leader of the sergeants, Fulgencio Batista, who was going to dominate public life for the next twenty-five years, appeared on the scene.

While the noncommissioned officers and the troops who supported them arrested the officers and a large number of them took refuge in a hotel in Havana where many American citizens, as well as their ambassador, were living, others, especially the younger officers observing the turn of events, hastened to support the uprising. The civilian revolutionary forces and the leaders of the opposition to the provisional government that had replaced Machado tried to give the sergeants' mutiny a political dimension that it did not have. A committee of five members (the Pentarquia) led by Ramón Grau San Martín, deposed the existing authorities with the support of the military in revolt: Students and university professors rushed to help the sergeants and their revolution. Grau San Martín assumed the presidency and formed a government that could not do less than promote Batista to the rank of colonel and give him command of an army that had been purged of a part of its officers and lacked a head. His mission was to name and put in place the officers needed for the proper functioning of the institution—which gave him enormous power.

Two questions arise immediately: Why did the officer corps collapse so completely as a result of the pressures of what

was little more than a trade union demonstration? And, what was the extent of the transformation of the Cuban army which took place at that time? The breakup of the army leadership seems to have been due to many factors that are not unrelated to the later power of Batista. The upper levels of Machado's army was made up of officers who had risen from the ranks and had been promoted for political reasons. The educated younger officers were not promoted and had legitimate reasons for resentment, which explains why they rallied to the support of the revolutionaries. Nearly 56 percent of the officers under Machado had not graduated from the military academy and those who had received their diplomas between 1913 and 1915 were still only lieutenants in 1933, while those who began as enlisted men had had brilliant careers.^[26] In addition to the absence of cohesion in the officer corps there were also social tensions in the military institutions. Since the period of the American occupation when the army was created, only Cubans of the white race had received officer's commissions. The continuation of this practice created a profound division between a white officer corps that came from the political class or was supported by it, and the noncommissioned officers who were for the most part of mixed blood. Batista himself was considered to be a mulatto in the socially accepted ethnic division of the time in Cuba. After the sergeants' revolt, a great number of Afro-Cubans became officers. According to the U.S. military attaché, the army was "darkened" considerably at that time, with blacks forming 40 percent of the total, and mulattoes 35 percent.

After the elimination of the officers who had tried to make a last stand at the Hotel Nacional the leadership of the army was completely reorganized: More than four thousand noncommissioned officers and some sixty civilians were named officers at all levels. These new officers, who were unconnected with the political and social elite, were totally lacking in the traditional power resources in Cuba; they could not claim that they were veterans of 1895, or members of the political oligarchy, or of the upper classes. Nor were they products of an autonomous military education. Before entering the army by choice or necessity they had been manual laborers, or unemployed. Batista, a sergeant stenographer in the army—which meant in terms of

rank that he was semiliterate—had earlier been a cane cutter, a carpenter, and a railroad worker. If the ex-sergeant, quickly named general, used the army to take and keep power, he did this not as a military man, but as a civilian in uniform. Because he had black blood and favored the Afro-Cubans, Batista was to enjoy very great popularity that was not limited to the military. His personal charm as a mulatto lindo, which impressed the journalists, his contagious laughter and his captivating smile, would not have led one to predict at the time that this man of the people was a future dictator.^[27] Thus a new military class was established. Paradoxically, this Lumpenproletariat in uniform, to use the words of Andrés Suarez, was the base of a government that was made up of revolutionary intellectuals.

This government was not to last long—a little more than a hundred days—during which Grau and his interior minister, the young and very popular Antonio Guiteras, who was supposed to be a Communist but was not, hastened to promulgate social reforms that were very advanced for Cuba (minimum wages for cane cutters, an eight-hour day). These policies produced an alliance of the traditional political forces with economic circles, as well as the increasing concern of the American administration. The reformist government was all the more certainly condemned because the parties of the left, especially the Communist party, were unceasingly attacking the, to them, lukewarm reformism of the Grau team.

The government of the United States, although urged to do so by the American interests in the island, refused to intervene. However, the wise diplomats of the Department of State understood all the while that it was possible to transform the newly reformed army that had emerged as the power behind the throne. When Grau fell and left the country in a state of anarchy and total instability, the head of the army, after brutally repressing the worker movement and the students in 1934, became the electoral decision maker with the consent of Washington. Under his aegis "do-nothing presidents" succeeded one another while the United States, following the new Roosevelt policy, abrogated the Platt Amendment that it had retained for possible use during the long crisis of 1933.

In addition to the discredited traditional parties, the new

anti-Machado groups (Ejercito del Caribe, ABC, OCRR, Joven Cuba), generally grouped around dramatic and violent figures such as Eduardo Chibás, appeared only as groups of uncontrollable activists who practised various forms of radical gangsterism at will. The army seemed to be the only institution that could both impose a certain order and strengthen the state. Still more, the new army, with its lower-class and ambitious leadership that was open to the advice coming from Washington was the only group that could put into place modernizing reforms that would limit the social atrophy from which Cuban society was suffering. In the absence of a party, therefore, the army under Batista was, in accordance with the objectives of U.S. policy, to play a modernizing role aimed at strengthening civil society that had been weakened by the neocolonial structure of the sugar economy.^[28] In 1937 a plan for social and economic reconstruction was published called The Three Year Plan (nicknamed because of its ambitious and unrealistic character, the Three Hundred Year Plan) that was supposed to have been inspired by a team of researchers from the Rockefeller Foundation.^[29] Its objectives were the improvement of the living conditions of the day workers in the sugar industry and especially the expansion of small property holdings and agricultural diversification. All his life Batista claimed to have been the author of this program of reforms that the army was charged with executing, at least in the social and educational areas.

Beginning in 1937, as had been the case under Machado, Cuba became militarized. A third of the national budget went to the army—or through it—to carry out the ambitious reform program. The head of the army created a kind of parallel government and established military cabinet posts that were in competition with the corresponding departments of the national government. Batista even organized a network of rural schools with sergeants as teachers that was run by the army. The process of modernization began with the military institution itself, which benefited from housing projects, recreation centers, hospitals, and orphanages for which there were no civilian equivalents. Everything seemed ready for the development of a military dictatorship—even the propaganda pointing to the exemplary role of the army.

Not the least of the paradoxes of the Batista era was the fact that this sergeant who aspired to be a dictator and acted like one, in fact from 1934 initiated the only period of representative democracy that the island had known, lasting until 1952, the date of his return to power. More flexible and more opportunistic than Somoza, this smiling army chief nicknamed by his enemies "Colonel Castor Oil" for the Mussolini-style treatment that he reserved for them, was a man who knew how to adjust to circumstances. Thus by small favors and able propaganda he took advantage of the Popular Front policy of the Third International to obtain the support of the Communist party that had a growing response in the labor movement. From 1938 he dealt with Blas Roca, the leader of the Communist party, and in 1939 with the help of the World War he favored the Confederacion de Trabajadores de Cuba—which was led by Lazaro Peña, a black tobacco worker, who was to carry out the same functions under Fidel Castro—over the other general labor organizations. Beginning in 1938, even before the entry of the USSR into the war, Batista was thus allied with both the United States and the Communists. Fortified by this support, he called a constitutional assembly in 1940 that adopted a socially advanced constitution, and then had himself elected president with the firm support of the Communist party, but also with that of the American interests and the agreement of nearly all social classes.^[30]

As a civilian president Batista appointed two Communists to his government in 1942: Juan Marinello and the young Carlos Rafael Rodríguez. However, former comrades at arms who believed that the moment had come to receive the benefits of their loyal political actions gave him trouble. Faced with the attack of the ex-sergeants, now army chiefs, he made efforts, in fact, to demilitarize his regime and to give it a broader base. In 1944 he did not run for president and his candidate was beaten by Grau San Martín, despite the support of the Communists who regretted the departure, in their words, of the father of the Popular Front, "the idol of the people," and "the magnificent resource of Cuban democracy."^[31] Batista may have declined to use fraud to win the election and govern through a frontman president as his neighbors did or as he himself had done in 1934 because he

preferred for the moment to return to private life to enjoy in peace the fortune that he had amassed in power.

Grau succeeded him, but the revolutionary leader of 1934 became in 1944 a corrupt president. Partly because of economic difficulties the people longed for Batista, who was then living in the United States. Political gangsterism, which had been a distinctive feature of national life since Machado, developed in a disturbing manner. The politics of the university was also involved.^[32] When Prio Socarras, the candidate of the Autentico party, succeeded Grau and followed the same practices as Machado, a flamboyant orator with a prophetic voice, Eduardo Chibás, head of the Ortodoxo party, electrified the middle classes with his denunciations of corruption and his attacks on the government before committing a quasi public suicide during a radio broadcast. It was in this deteriorating atmosphere as the 1952 elections were approaching that Batista prepared a coup d'état against Prio, who was suspected of being unwilling to give up power to the Ortodoxos who seemed likely to be the victors in the election.

Batista appeared as an alternative for the military and the lower classes. His democratic past seemed to augur well for his future actions. His initial intentions ("to deliver the island from gangsterism") appealed to public opinion. Soon, however, Batista became an idle petty tyrant who enriched himself lavishly and devoted himself to the good life. This parvenu did not wish to govern by terror as his neighbor Trujillo did, although he became one of the most cruel and bloody tyrants of the Caribbean after Fidel Castro launched his guerrilla war in the Sierra Maestra. This man of the people wanted to be loved. He encouraged the Afro-Cuban cults of the santerías and cultivated his popularity among the black population while at his side the very beautiful Marta Fernández played at being Eva Perón. Trujillo had only contempt, it was said, for the populist sergeant.^[33] It is also true that apart from the atrocities committed under his regime, when confronted by the Castroite guerrillas, this "democratic" dictator did not exhibit the excesses and economic greed of a Trujillo or a Somoza. Would such a course have been possible anyway in the Cuban semiprotectorate?

As to the military, it was evident at the end of the regime

that the loyalty of the army was rather weak. The Cuban army defended first of all its own corporate interests and its extramilitary role in society. Isolated from class interests, the military found themselves deprived of all legitimacy when the United States withdrew its support from the Batista regime. As in 1933 they reacted by trying to save the institution by removing Batista—although too late—in the midst of a general effort at survival (certain units sold arms to the rebels) that coincided with divisions among competing cliques. The Cuban army did not constitute for Batista a praetorian guard on the model of the Nicaraguan National Guard under Somoza. Its special characteristics, which were partly influenced by the first Batista period and by the revolution of the sergeants, made it inappropriate for such a patrimonialist usage.

Paraguay: The Forgotten General

The regimes that we have just examined appear to be dictatorships that were not very military in character. First, these tyrants in fact enjoyed other political resources that permitted them to counterbalance or to supplement their military support. Democracy, in the case of Batista, seems to have been used for this purpose. Second, they deinstitutionalized the military, either by creating chains of command and selection that were based on particularistic criteria and highly influenced by nepotism, or by the subversion of hierarchy and discipline, as in the case of the sergeants' revolution in Cuba. Nevertheless, the state-oriented armies of South America, even in the contemporary period, have produced systems of power that involve continuing authoritarian and personalistic controls that are comparable to those produced by the neocolonial armies.

Indeed, the oldest dictator of the continent is an authentic military man who has been solidly in power for more than a quarter of a century. In 1954 General Alfredo Stroessner seized power in a coup d'état. Since that time Paraguay, the unfortunate Arcadia between the rivers (the Paraná and the Paraguay), has been in the hands of a general whose primary concern seems to be that no one should talk about him or his country.

Every effort is made to ensure that the world is not too interested in this little, essentially rural country squeezed between the two South American major powers, Brazil and Argentina. It has even been said that to be more certain, the correspondents of the major press agencies belonged to the official party; one of them, the correspondent of Agence France Presse, was thought to be a member of the government, and more specifically of the office of the president. That desire to be ignored is not entirely explained by the fact that it is a country that has been isolated historically and shut in with its own language (Guarany^[*] ) and culture. Cut off as it was from the world by the nationalist autocrat, Francia, from the beginning of the nineteenth century, then blockaded by the Argentine, Rosas, before being encircled by the armies of the Triple Alliance from 1865 to 1870, the archaic society of Paraguay was never oriented very much toward the outside world. However, that modest attitude is also shared by a dictator who has been fortunate enough to be able to break the records for longevity of his more prestigious and colorful predecessors to whose memory he does not hesitate to appeal. Following the example of Francia, "El Supremo," who held power as dictator from 1816 until 1840, and of Francisco Solano López, "the Marshall," who succeeded his father in 1862 and died on the field of battle against the armies of Brazil in 1869, Stroessner at the beginning of his regime bestowed on himself the modest title of "El Continuador."^[34] Nevertheless, he did not affront his powerful neighbors as did López, or defy the metropolitan powers as did Franda, indeed, he did the opposite.

Since the Paraguayan War decimated the country—only half of its 1860 population and one tenth of its adult males survived—Paraguay has had a tradition of military heroism and valor that is recognized throughout the continent. In the twentieth century the country established a regular standing army with obligatory military service for two years (in fact, selectively applied, since it is sufficient to pay a tax to be exempted) and an efficient system of military schools.^[35] Its officers were very frequently favorably received for advanced training (especially before the establishment of the Superior War School to train the general staff) in the institutions of neighboring countries, Ar-

gentina and Brazil. This warrior nation fought Bolivia between 1932 and 1935 when its military forces tried to encroach on Paraguayan territory. The army of Paraguay pushed the Bolivians back but found themselves unable to exploit their advantage at the foot of the Andes because of a lack of logistic support and economic capability. The two exhausted countries lost one hundred twenty-five thousand men. A treaty of peace was signed after three years of negotiations. All the states of Latin America expressed their sympathy for the victim of aggression and the rumor spread that international petroleum interests had something to do with the causes of the conflict. However, the war had unforeseen social and political consequences on both sides. Associations of veterans and war heroes led to an active, if not dominant, role for the army in public life.

Paraguay, and some of its neighbors as well, had experienced a very unstable political life since independence: thirty-two presidents and one triumvirate had been in power between 1820 and 1932. It could even be said that in the twentieth century it had a one-year presidency. Two large parties traditionally fought for power: the Republican or Colorado party and the Democratic or Liberal party. The latter party, having removed the conservative Colorados in 1904, dominated political life until the war with Bolivia.

On 17 February 1936 Colonel Rafael Franco, supported by part of the army and by the powerful association of veterans of the Chaco War, overthrew the Liberal party government, sent the old political class into exile and, openly following European authoritarian models, issued a decree that forbade all party activity. That "February Government," which gave rise to the Febrerista party that announced the birth of a "new Paraguay," appeared like many of its counterparts at the time throughout the continent at the same time reformist and authoritarian, fascist and progressive. It called for expropriation of the land to improve the condition of the peasantry and for social legislation for the workers. But the Liberals who were plotting against it did not give it time. Franco, less fortunate than his contemporary of the same name in Spain, was overthrown in a new coup d'état in August 1937. General Estigarribia, who replaced him, had a constitution promulgated in 1940 that was authoritarian,

presidentialist, and vaguely corporatist, and granted the president discretionary power to declare martial law. That clause was to provide the basis of government for the country for twenty-five years after 1947. Some months after the adoption of the new constitution, the president and his wife were killed in an aviation accident, and his minister of war, General Morinigo, succeeded him following an election in 1943 in which he was the only candidate.

Morinigo and some members of the Colorado party, which had a certain following in the army, governed in a dictatorial way. In March 1947 the Febreristas, along with the Liberals and a group of young officers, organized an uprising, plunging the country into a six-month civil war. Despite the success of the insurgents and the division of the regular army, Morinigo and the Colorados won out, thanks to the assistance of the Argentine government and General Perón,^[36] and perhaps some American support.^[37] The victory of the existing government was followed by the "Colorado anarchy," during which, for a period of two years, a succession of presidents belonging to that party were overthrown by coups, one after another, while Paraguayans fled to Argentina by the thousands.^[38]

By appealing to the old Colorado party, which had been kept from power so long, to provide a base for dictatorship, Morinigo produced the division, if not collapse, of the party. Each faction, too weak to govern by itself, sought the support of the military. This is how the commander in chief of the army, Alfredo Stroessner, in May 1954 took the party over for himself, had himself nominated as the only official candidate, was "elected" in July, and remained thereafter as "constitutional" president of Paraguay. Confirmed in the presidency by plebiscite in 1958, he has been reelected every five years with a clockwork regularity that is astonishing in that continent. Making use of some minor constitutional changes, on 12 February 1978 he accepted his sixth mandate for "order and peace" in Paraguay.^[*]

Just as regularly every sixty days "the most anti-Communist government in the world," in its own words, extends

[*] Stroessner was elected to a seventh term in 1983. (Translator's note.)

martial law that is only lifted on election day. In those elections the real opposition parties are excluded but a "loyal opposition," promoted or in various ways tolerated by the dictatorship, is given an honorable place at least in the congress where it automatically has a third of the seats.^[39] Respect for human rights is not a central concern of the artillery general who presides with a quasi-lifetime title over the destinies of the Guarany^[*] nation. Agrarian leagues, the Communist party, dissident Colorados, and militant Febreristas are pitilessly beaten, imprisoned, or eliminated.

This blond son of a Bavarian German, who rules over a dark-skinned nation of Guaran Indians, leaves nothing to chance. While the dictator as well as his family have discretely acquired wealth, Paraguay has not been transformed into a Nicaraguan-style Stroessner fiefdom. Only the son-in-law, Dominguez Dibb, a prosperous businessman was discussed in the world press because of his rivalries with Somoza. The Paraguayan state has a tangible existence, and the army is not the personal property of the president. It is unlikely that a Stroessner dynasty will become established. The oldest son, an aviation officer, has no military base, and the marriage of the youngest son to the daughter of a powerful general, Andrés Rodriguez, did not produce the results that had been anticipated.^[40]

This state army that enjoys an enviable historical legitimacy has sometimes posed problems for General Stroessner. In 1955 a group of young officers linked to a dissident sector of the Colorado party rose up against its leaders. The control of the army is one of the principal concerns of the dictatorship. Beginning in 1948, as a result of the civil war, all Liberal or Febrerista officers were eliminated from the ranks of the military. Henceforth it was necessary to be a Colorado to become an officer, and the cadets at the military school were chosen from families that were affiliated with the official party. To consolidate his power Stroessner was careful to remove from positions of command all the officers who possessed personal prestige, the heroes of the Chaco War among them, and he replaced them with men who owed much, if not everything, to him. But it is corruption and the possibility of enrichment offered to loyal officers that assure military tranquillity. Loyalty pays off, especially in a

"contraband state" such as Paraguay where to a greater or lesser degree everyone, from the tourists to international smugglers with official protection, engages in that commercial activity. The discovery of the Ricord affair and "the Paraguayan connection" in 1972 revealed to the world that very high levels in the country were involved in the drug traffic. It was claimed at that time that a former French pimp who had worked for the head of the "French Gestapo" on Rue Lauriston in Paris during the German occupation enjoyed the understanding of high military personages in the immediate entourage of General Stroessner, including General Patricio Coleman, who was responsible for the antiguerrilla struggle,^[41] and even General Rodríguez, number two man in the regime and Stroessner's possible successor.^[42] In addition an admiral is said to control arms smuggling and each chief of a military region on the frontier has his specialty depending on the internal or external demand and on the decisions of the "godfather"—flour, television sets, automobiles, household machines, stolen cattle, and so forth. The fact that the Paraguayan frontiers are highly permeable explains why its historical tolerance regarding such commerce has become an instrument of government. It is the "price paid for peace," Stroessner is supposed to have said cynically, that leads him to sacrifice the domestic economy to his political longevity.

Under a veneer of institutionalized democracy the Paraguayan dictatorship also practices a police violence that is the underside of the generalized corruption of the leading civilian and military sectors. The terror exercised by the pyragues, spies with "winged feet" in the Guarany^[*] language, whose informers are everywhere (one out of four inhabitants, it is said)^[43] reinforces the recruitment, not to say total control, that is offered to the government by the official party. The conservative but nonclerical Colorado party has been totally taken over by Stroessner, who has purged it of all potential rivals and independent personalities who might offer resistance to him. All the public servants in the state and local government are obliged to be members of the party. A party membership card is required in order to receive subsidies or salaries from the state. It is not surprising that the organization claims nine hundred

thousand members, which is the number of votes that it receives in elections in a country of three million inhabitants. The hereditary character of party affiliation gives still more force to party recruitment. The parties in Paraguay are above all social communities that are expected to provide service and protection. A survey in the 1960s showed that half of the members of the two large parties had relatives who already belonged to the same party.^[44] Also, during the campaigns the police repression is carried out by Stroessner's party. Its representatives, the mbaretes or village caudillos,^[45] are all-powerful and do not hesitate to carry out vengeance or to put pressure upon the peasants who are not Colorados. The Colorado exclusivism would appear to be totalitarian, no doubt, in a less rudimentary society. The party slogan "He who is not with us is against us" is indeed not much of an indication of political tolerance. "There should not be a single Colorado who is poor," preached the program of the official party in the 1950s, thus covering over its violence against political adversaries and a clientelist policy that had produced results. The local branches of the Colorado party are in fact very attentive to the needs of the membership that they provide with legal aid, assistance with funerals, and school supplies.^[46]

The opportunism of Stroessner and his balancing act between Brazil and Argentina have facilitated his survival. His sensitivity to the pressures from Washington is only equalled by his desire to be well regarded by the metropolitan power in an area in which he is without rival—that of the anti-Communism that has always been used to legitimize his regime. This is why Stroessner sent a Paraguayan contingent to reestablish order in the Dominican Republic at the side of the marines in 1965, and why one of the most recent congresses of the World Anti-Communist League was held in Asunción.

As we see, this personal dictatorship is quite civilian in its essential base. While the army is not far from power, it does not govern, and Stroessner is not its spokesman. Rather he has succeeded in neutralizing it through various means, including corruption, that are legitimated and supported by a logic of party loyalty. The specific characteristic of this type of extreme "sultanate" or patrimonial regime—to use the terminology of

Max Weber—is that it corrupts representative institutions and the universalistic organs of the state.

Personal Power and Military Power

The fact that power originates with the military is thus not sufficient to give it a specifically martial character. In the personal dictatorships that we have described the army as an institution does not delegate its power to a military leader; rather, power is wrested from it by the action of the dictator who establishes a network parallel to the disciplinary hierarchy founded on loyalty not to the institution but to his person, and sometimes reinforced by a party element as well. While these regimes, which are military in appearance, have in fact, become demilitarized, it is interesting to observe that the movement from a system of domination by the military to one or another type of personal power is marked by severe conflict. In fact, the history of what are in general terms called contemporary "military dictatorships" is a history of struggles by the generalpresidents to emancipate themselves from those who have put them in power or from their institutional base, and to make their power permanent. Military men who have become heads of state for corporate reasons, because they were at the top of the hierarchy, rarely become autocrats of the traditional patriarchal type in the continent. General Stroessner successfully carried out that transformation. In Venezuela General Pérez Jiménez, who was a member of a junta that removed the social democrats of the Acción Democratica from power also achieved that goal for a while. After the assassination of Colonel Delgado Chalbaud and thanks to a favorable petroleum situation as well as the support of the United States, Pérez Jiménez became a petty and bloody dictator. Professionally educated and a product of a modern army, he knew how to purchase the silence of his peers by fabulous expenditures for the welfare and pride of the armed forces. But the army officers who were kept out of power were disturbed by the presence of police everywhere, while the air force and the navy felt that they were involved, with no benefit to themselves, in a regime that favored the

clique of officers from the Andean region who surrounded the dictator. Military discontent grew and an uprising put an end to the regime. Pérez Jiménez gave up power and left Venezuela in January 1958.

In Argentina where military presidents, interspersed by occasional intervals of civilian rule, have succeeded one another since 1930, conficts between the high command and the presidents drawn from their ranks are standard fare, and the replacement of one general by another at the head of the state in a palace revolution has taken place at least five times. Officially the army deposes the provisional occupant of the Casa Rosada in order to prevent him from perpetuating himself in power and removing the military from government. Thus suspicion that General Juan Carlos Onganía, the beneficiary of the 1966 coup d'état, wished to extend his mandate when he stated that the armed forces did not "co-govern," was sufficient for the High Command to take action to overthrow him at the appropriate time. In Peru, General Juan Velasco Alvarado, who—thanks to the army—headed the "revolutionary nationalist" movement that began in October 1968, was deposed by his peers because he tried to acquire personal support through a populist policy and to extend his power beyond the time prescribed in the military regulations.

While not so long ago the pronunciamentos and the cuartelazos of ambitious generals produced highly personalized dictatorships, today the governments of the armed forces are above all bureaucratic authoritarian regimes. Brazil after 1964 with its orderly succession of general-presidents undoubtedly represents the most developed paradigm of the "impersonal power of the army" that characterizes and legitimates the military state. However, the personalization following the Franco model of the counterrevolutionary regime of Chile since 1973—although it is very far from the patrimonial dictatorships of the quasi-sultanates that we have analyzed—shows that this type of evolution is not excluded, even within one of the most state-oriented and professionalized armies of the continent.

7—
Model Democracies and Civilian Supremacy

The social characteristics of the nations of Latin America do not seem to encourage the development of liberal democracy. It is argued that the peoples of Iberian America are not "mature" enough for the delicate balance involved in representative government, or at least that democracy is not universalizable and that it remains coextensive with the individualistic and Protestant values of the European West. Thus, what the contemptuous writers of the end of the last century called the "French sickness" is now rebaptized there as the "Latin sickness." The political monstrosities that we have just described would lead one to draw a similar conclusion. However there is considerable empirical evidence that refutes those who maintain the immaturity thesis. No people is fated to endure dictatorship or is naturally incapable of civilian supremacy, nor does a high cultural and economic level make a society immune to authoritarian, even totalitarian, deviations, as the history of Europe in this century has sufficiently demonstrated. Along parallel lines, here and there in Latin America there have been countries in which civilians have been in power for a relatively long time. Military men who do not intervene in politics are not an unknown species in the subcontinent, which means that we should come to an understanding of both the significance and extent of civilian supremacy and the proper definition of military intervention.

Is the Cuban regime born in the Sierra Maestra really civil-

ian in nature, and are the comandantes of the Nicaraguan Sandinista FSLN really military? In mobilizing states on the road to socialism these distinctions are not appropriate. Like the distinction public/private, the distinction civilian/military is foreign to Marxist-Leninist models and proper to capitalist societies. In addition, civilian control of the armed forces is a question of degree. In no country are the military completely removed from politics; everything depends on the political space that they occupy. On a continuum going from corporate influence to military usurpation to the overthrow of the civilian authorities, we can identify two other levels: participation in decision making in areas that are not strictly military in the name of an expanded conception of the tasks of defense, and army control of the exercise of power that reverses civil/military relations without replacing the legitimate authorities. The term "intervention" can be used to apply either to the usurpation of power or to the two lesser degrees of involvement. If we keep to the classic definition according to which intervention involves the rupture by force of institutional continuity we can claim, nevertheless, that there are many armies in Latin America that do not intervene in politics. However, one cannot be too prudent. In 1970 we would not have hesitated to cite Chile and Uruguay as clear examples of demilitarized states. Keeping these reservations in mind, in the 1980s we can point to four countries that have had uninterrupted civilian rule and military subordination for over twenty years. We do not say that those countries are all paragons of democratic virtues, or that they have not experienced attempts at a coup. We simply state that Colombia, Costa Rica, Mexico, and Venezuela are the only states in which for the last two decades the relations between the civilians and the military have been of a non-praetorian type and coup makers, when they have existed, have had no success.

It has seemed useful to us to examine the methods and causes of that civilian supremacy as well as its limits and uncertainties over time. These civilian-dominated states, whether lasting or not, can also tell us something about the military state. And reversing the problem through studying the cases of armies that do not intervene can help us to perceive the processes and factors underlying militarization, although we must

keep in mind the irreducible national differences and the danger of continent-wide generalizations.

Costa Rica: The Withering Away of the Army and the Welfare State

Costa Rica is not only, to use the tourist description, a "Spanish-speaking democracy." This little peaceful country located in a region dominated by dictatorships and popular upheavals has not had a coup d'état since 1917 nor an army since 1948. The Costa Ricans are proud that they have twenty thousand schoolteachers and only eight thousand men in their police force. If, unlike its neighbors, Costa Rica has had only one military coup d'état between 1891 and 1948 and one brief period of dictatorship,^[1] this is because its army has never been a powerful and prestigious defensive organization. In fact, it had already begun to disappear well before its legal abolition. Following Costa Rican independence in 1821—gained without conflict simply as part of the Capitanía Géneral of Guatemala—that neglected backland of the isthmus did not develop a warrior tradition or predatory caudillos during the nineteenth century. The nonexistence of a large Indian population and the importance of small peasant landholdings were the reasons for the low level of social conflict that in turn could explain the lack of interest by the ruling classes in the creation of a powerful and permanent military apparatus. From the beginning of the nineteenth century—some think that the importance of the banana enclave controlled by large foreign companies was a factor—Costa Rica relied on the mediation of third countries, especially the United States, whenever a conflict broke out with one of its neighbors, such as with Panama in 1921. In 1948, when political confrontations degenerated into civil war, the army had only three hundred men. Yet there were more than one thousand deaths because of the involvement of popular militias formed by the trade unions and the Communist party. The insurgent army made up of civilians had little difficulty in defeating the Costa Rican military.^[2]

It is always necessary to go back to 1948 if we wish to

understand the political evolution of the country. The civil war was a point of rupture and nonreturn in its institutional history. Among the origins of the war were the particular political realignments that were only made possible by the climate produced by the Allied victory in the Second World War. A populist Catholic president isolated from the real forces in the country allied himself with the Communist party and secured the support of the church to maintain himself in power. That reformist regime of President Calderón Guardia upset the grand coffee and banking bourgeoisie because of his unsavory associations and his social reforms, and provoked the hostility of the middle class because of his corruption and his disregard for constitutional guarantees. The opposition concluded that the electoral route was closed to it since the government had annulled the results of presidential elections that had been unfavorable to it; in the climate of the cold war and with the approval of the United States, these forces launched a military uprising that had a social and political backing as heterogeneous as that of the "Calderón-Communist" regime. Allied with a group of modern entrepreneurs and urban middle sectors that desired reforms, espoused social democratic ideas, and wanted to rid the Caribbean region of its dictators were the coffee-producing oligarchy, financial circles, the large traders, and the traditional parties.

The Army of National Liberation led by José Figueres won the war. The official army, undermined by clientelism and amateurism, collapsed, and difficulties began for the "opportunistic alliance" that had overthrown the government of Calderón Guardia and his successor, Teodoro Picado. The upper bourgeoisie, with the coffee planters at the head, only wished to end the Communist threat while Figueres and his Liberacionistas and Caribbean Legion wanted to carry their democratic crusade beyond the frontiers of Costa Rica and refused to call into question the reforms that had been adopted by the defeated government. Neither the labor code nor the complex of social laws was repealed. In addition the victors, after outlawing the Communist party, nationalized the banks, imposed taxes on capital, and expanded the economic responsibilities of the state in the areas of prices and production. While

Figueres and his friends, under pressure from the United States, agreed to dissolve the Caribbean Legion and to abandon the international struggle against tyranny, they hoped to be able to institutionalize the army of "liberation" that had brought them victory. The upper bourgeoisie and the conservative groups, which were so weak politically that they had been forced to ally with the "newly arrived" groups to recapture power and lacked a military apparatus, opposed that view and desired to reconstitute the regular army. Since the conservatives dominated the Constituent Assembly that was elected in 1949 while Figueres and his Liberacionistas had force on their side, a compromise solution was found in the legal prohibition of any military institution. The abolition of the army was, first of all, aimed at disarming what was to become in 1951 the Party of National Liberation (PLN) while guaranteeing to the victors in the civil war that the oligarchy would not reconstitute a state military force that was directed at them.

There was a certain false symmetry about this too perfect solution. The "security forces," a kind of national gendarmerie that was established after the two armies were abolished, was actually dominated by the followers of "Don Pepe" Figueres, the charismatic leader of the Movement of National Liberation.^[3] In addition the veterans of the Caribbean Legion did not disappear, nor did their weapons. Some even considered themselves to be a politico-military reserve force in the service of the Liberation party and its historic leader. And even today Figueres does not hesitate to confess that while his country has no army he does not lack arms and men ready to use them in case of need.^[4] Therefore, we can ask why a military force was not reestablished after 1949 and what beyond the vagaries of history are the underlying reasons for that special situation.

In 1953, when the new Party of National Liberation elected Figueres to the presidency by a massive majority, a development-oriented group of modern entrepreneurs favorable to the industrialization of the country came to power. The objective of this group was to harmonize the interests of the different social sectors and to give stability to the renascent democracy through the active intervention of the state. Large public investments and the creation of numerous state enterprises in close liaison

with private enterprise produced an "oversized bureaucracy" that, in the view of some observers, compensated for the narrowness of the market and the rigidity of the agrarian structures.^[5] A welfare state was also established at the same time involving stabilizing transfers that, even if they favored the urban middle classes more than the rural proletariat, did not leave funds for military expenses. The commonplace that compares the numbers of policemen and schoolteachers is more than an ideological circular argument: it is the expression of a system of government that is called by one Costa Rican author, "welfare state capitalism."^[6] Also, the abolition of the military that seemed in the first place to be merely the product of special circumstances is not likely to be reversed. No doubt because it corresponded to deeper motivations linked to the social equilibrium of the Costa Rican nation, a nonmilitary state has become today one of the bases of its democratic consensus. In the same way a firm and conscious commitment to the practices and the values of democracy is now a distinctive element in the identity of the nation after more than thirty years of orderly electoral successions and alternations in power between the PLN and its conservative adversaries.^[7]

Internationally this unarmed republic draws strength from its very weakness. Its best defense is precisely its image as a disarmed country. However, the security of Costa Rica does not depend solely on the judgment of international opinion. The foreign policy of San José shows this in that it does not depart one millimeter from that of Washington. Officially the new regime that was established at the same time as the Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance (1947) and the Charter of Bogotá (1948) claims that it relies on the arbitration and protection of the inter-American system for its security. But in doing so, Costa Rica gives a continuing legitimacy to the Organization of American States and to the diplomatic instruments that act more to cover armed American interventions than to protect fragile democracies.

In addition, the functioning of its institutions and the acceptance by the dominant party of an alternation in power have helped to prevent the reestablishment of a stable standing army while also proving by a negative example that the establish-

ment of autonomous armed forces is actually one of the reasons for their involvement in politics. In fact, in Costa Rica the officers of the Civil Guard do not enjoy the meritocratic privileges of the majority of the armies in the continent. Their professional continuity is even rather less than that of the civil servants. In the absence of an agreement between the different political forces to make the security personnel really permanent, they are part of the spoils system. The organizational weakness that results from this does not encourage the transformation of a gendarmerie into an army. Both the leaders of the PLN and their adversaries fear that stability of personnel under the aegis of the other camp would lead to the surreptitious reestablishment of a party-dominated armed force. The year 1948 has not been forgotten. As distinct from the situations in South America where the army leadership, enjoying autonomy in recruitment and freedom from political interference, forms an administration made up of amateurs, in Costa Rica the civilian bureaucrats—"state bourgeoisie"—are more professionalized than the security forces, thus making their militarization practically impossible and civilian supremacy absolute.^[8]

The orientation and the characteristics of the Costa Rican state in large part demonstrate that durable demilitarization. The structural elements that gave rise to its establishment merit some attention. It has been said and repeated that the absence of gold and of Indians made that isolated backwater of the Captaincy General of Guatemala, despite its name, a poor colony of the Spanish empire. One can undoubtedly assume that the absence of an indigenous population played a determining role in the formation of Costa Rican society. Not only was there no population available for forced labor, but labor was scarce throughout the history of the country. While in the north of the isthmus in Indianized Guatemala and overpopulated El Salvador there was an abundance of workers, here labor was lacking. The Spaniards who settled the country in the colonial period worked their land themselves and therefore, it was said, did not take more land than they could cultivate.^[9] When coffee, which requires so much care to cultivate and harvest, became the dominant product, the scarcity of the labor factor became the chief characteristic of the economy. Seasonal workers came

from neighboring countries. Even in recent years the dates of the school vacations were moved up in order to permit children to aid their parents in harvesting the precious berry. The development of a pioneer spirit and the existence of vacant land for all who desired it helped to promote a relaxed social climate tied to family-sized property and the preponderance of private values. Costa Rica is a sort of anti-El Salvador if we consider that that other Central American country is marked by over-population and the concentration of landholding in the hands of a tiny minority.

In Costa Rica, therefore, everything seems to tend toward compromise. The need for a work force has pushed the employer to make concessions. Agricultural wages are the highest in Central America, nearly twice those of Guatemala and three times Honduran wages.^[10] The paternalism of the farmer working the land is fundamentally different from mediated relations with an absentee landlord. The welfare state is also one of the structural determinants, since the high cost of labor, by discouraging foreign investment for many years, left the field open to a "democratic welfare-state capitalism"^[11] that supports the political institutions. It is true that the abolition of the army was the result of particular circumstances, but that decision translated and expressed the strong and attractive special character of Costa Rica—although it still has its problems.

Petroleum and the Democratic Compromise in Venezuela

After the long primitive personal dictatorship of Juan Vicente Gómez, the archetype of all the tropical tyrannies, who presided over the first petroleum boom from 1908 to 1935, Venezuela entered into an uncertain period of democracy. However, when the democracy conceded by the "Gomezista" Generals López Contreras and Medina Angarita did not develop quickly enough in the eyes of the civilian and military opposition a group of young officers, and the Acción Democrática party overthrew the postdictatorial government in 1945. A junta headed by Romulo Betancourt and an elected president, Romulo Galle-

gos, tried for three years to establish an advanced democracy of a socializing orientation, but this effort was interrupted in 1948 by a conservative coup d'état. Eliminating his rivals, Colonel Pérez Jiménez established himself as dictator for a period of ten years. Venezuela had moved from caudillismo to praetorianism, only to return to a regressive personalism in power. In January 1958 a part of the army together with the navy and air force finally removed Pérez Jiménez. From then on civilian government has prevailed with orderly presidential successions that have permitted an alternation between Social Democratic and Christian Democratic presidents. Not a single military coup has broken the continuity of civilian control in a country that during the 1960s experienced violent political agitation. We may ask how this could happen, especially since the apparent architects of this democratic stabilization were the same men who had been easily removed from power by the army.

To answer, we must first discuss the army. At the beginning of the twentieth century the Venezuelan army was regarded in the whole continent as a military institution that was full of officers with much gold braid but little education. It is true that the civil wars that ravaged the country throughout the preceding century had produced very decentralized armed forces in which the indiscipline of "revolutionary" generals was combined with an astonishing inflation of rank. The 1873 census reveals that in the state of Carabobo alone in a male population of 22,952 inhabitants there were 3,450 officers, including 449 generals and 627 colonels.^[12] Professionalization came late despite some cautious attempts by Cipriano Castro and later by Gómez. Playing one foreign mission against the other without ever entrusting the reorganization of the army to any of them, Gómez only succeeded in centralizing and unifying the Venezuelan military by resorting to local recruitment and favoritism.^[13] Under his reign the hegemony of those from the Andean region was institutionalized. More than 80 percent of the members of the officer corps came from the three states on the Colombian border, and a large majority of those Andeans came from the state of Tachira, Gómez's native state. Thus General López Contreras, who became head of state after the death of Gómez, was a tachirense who had enlisted in the "revolution-

ary" army of Castro, the first Andean to come to power in 1899. His successor, Medina Angarita, became the first military school graduate to become minister of war in 1935. The change in the Venezuelan army took place between those two dates and men.

It is true that Pérez Jiménez was an Andean, as were many of the other officers, but in 1945 the Venezuelan army resembled its counterparts in neighboring countries more than it did the montoneras of the independence period. The 1948 coup d'état was not a resurgence of caudillismo, but was rather the result of an entirely new political situation. The emergence and immediate domination of the country by a Social Democratic party—whose leaders were viewed as Communists—transformed the Venezuelan political panorama. The beneficiaries of the 1945 coup d'état, who did not have unanimous support in the opposition, monopolized power by securing their support from large mass mobilizations that frightened moderate opinion. Intent on implementing their program without delay, they initiated a number of reforms at the same time, with the result that they increased the number of their adversaries. Thus the church, which was opposed to the secularization of private education, joined the traditional political elites, the foreign companies, and conservatives of every stripe in a common front against the new regime. The petroleum companies, on whom a fifty-fifty tax had been imposed, conspired against it. The overwhelming majorities that it had obtained in the elections to the constitutional assembly and in the 1948 presidential elections (78.4 percent and 74.4 percent respectively), far from increasing the legitimacy of the new government, contributed to its fragility.^[14] The other parties attacked the sectarianism of Acción Democrática and their press openly called for a coup. The night of the coup against the novelist-president Romulo Gallegos, the Christian democratic leader Rafael Caldera and the leader of the center-left, Jovito Villalba, gave their support to the military authorities.^[15] The overwhelming domination of the government by the Adecos was therefore their principal weakness while the "new government threatened too many established interests, both symbolic and material at the same time."^[16] The experience was not to be forgotten. The return of democracy

ten years later and its consolidation owed much to the lessons of that sad apprenticeship.

The lessons of the defeat of the trienio (1945–48) related both to the limitation of political conflict and the attitude that was to be taken toward the army. Acción Democrática (AD) and its democratic opponents understood that in 1948 democratic institutions had been the victims of the intensity and the ineradicable and cumulative character of civilian conflict that opened the way to military intervention. Therefore the parties that met in New York signed the Pact of Punto Fijo in October 1958. This agreement, although it did not provide for a common candidate in the first presidential elections,^[17] established a code of conduct and of coexistence. Coalition and compromise were the order of the day. All the political forces that signed the pact agreed to reduce the intensity of open party conflicts and to channelize and control them. Henceforth, for the Acción Democrática, negotiation became more important than ideology and program. To build a stable and durable democracy was the first priority. It was not possible at the same time to construct democratic institutions and to initiate profound social and economic reforms. However, an openness to compromise and to the lessening of ideological tensions was insufficient; it was also necessary for the opposition to refrain from turning to the military to resolve partisan differences.

Certainly the fact that the megalomania and the police methods of Pérez Jiménez had discredited military intervention operated in favor of democratic institutions, at least in the first years after the return to democracy, but favorable economic conditions undoubtedly helped to lower the political stakes. The search for "technical"—as opposed to political—solutions for problems would not have been possible without the petroleum resources. It was evidently less costly to draw on those resources than to alter the distribution of wealth, or to tax and redistribute it. As to the social cost of stability, there are various views on that subject. However, we can also ask about the social cost of change if it results, as it did in Chile, in a dramatic retrogression in both politics and society.

It would be wrong, however, to think that petroleum was the only explanation. In itself this kind of wealth is not stabiliz-

ing, much less democratizing.^[18] Economic booms can just as well have the opposite effect. In the Venezuelan case, we should not underestimate the coherent structure of the party organizations, especially of the two dominant parties, AD and COPEI (the Social Democrats and the Christian Democrats) who, despite the multiplication and successive divisions of the parties, have received between 50 percent and 75 percent of the votes ever since 1958. The "passion for voting" that is attributed to the Venezuelans because of the high level of electoral participation since 1958 also demonstrated that the system enjoyed substantial popular support.^[19] Finally, we should mention the decisive role of prudent and strong leaders, especially that of Romulo Betancourt, the president elected in 1958 who remained until his death in September 1981 the guiding spirit of Venezuelan democracy.

Under his presidency from 1959 until 1964 there was no lack of coup attempts by both right and left. The Castroite guerrillas and the personal vindictiveness of Dominican Republic dictator Trujillo^[20] did not make the task of the first constitutionally elected president an easy one. The right wing of the military that was favorable to the deposed dictator rose up at least twice in a spectacular way: in Tachira in April 1960, led by the former minister of war of the 1958 junta, and in Caracas in February 1961. At the same time the parties of the left plunged into armed struggle and on two occasions important contingents of marines led by Castroite officers revolted in Carupano and Puerto Cabello.^[21] Betancourt crushed the rebels, sometimes with the aid of the civilian population, using a severity against them that was uncompromising, but in conformity with democratic legal procedures.^[22]

Romulo Betancourt, who had reserved for the president the areas of relations with the army and with Washington, took his title and role as commander in chief very seriously. He participated in military ceremonies and never missed an occasion to visit their camps. Acting to isolate the seditious elements without provoking a corporate reaction, he made special efforts to maintain contact with the officers. Taking care to demonstrate that the antimilitary sentiments attributed to him were unfounded, President Betancourt exhibited an extreme solicitude for the corporate concerns of the armed forces (armament,

barracks, maneuvers) as well as for the personal conditions of the officers (housing, loans, etc.). In his speeches to the armed forces, the president lost no opportunity to remind them that they had been allies in the restoration of the constitutional regime and to emphasize the state of abandonment and neglect in which they had been kept by the dictatorship. In addition Betancourt knew how to exploit the guerrilla threat with consummate ability in order to secure support for the institutions of democracy from the former enemies of his party—the army, the church, and business. Against the possibility of the establishment of the Cuban model, this ex-Communist represented a lesser evil. For military consumption, it was not difficult for him to make effective references to the foreign origin of the terrorist threat and to the fate promised for bourgeois armies by Castroism.^[23] Having been wounded in the attack organized against him in Caracas by the Dominican tyrant, he had a special right to denounce foreign aggression, especially when it was aimed in his view at Cubanizing Venezuela. This is why guerrilla activity, which is so often fatal to democratic governments because they are regarded as too slow and weak, helped to strengthen civilian institutions in Venezuela. The defeat of the guerrillas and their later reintegration into the democratic system through an amnesty of the parties of the left who had been involved in armed struggle also helped to consolidate democracy.

Under his two successors, belonging respectively to Acción Democrática and to the Social Christian party, a less agitated political climate seemed to accompany the continuing subordination of the military. In fact, the Venezuelan army, which did not lack power, remained nonpolitical, and the means of civilian control were not, on the evidence, exclusively constitutional. The Venezuelan army, which is well equipped and enjoys a substantial budget, is characterized today by a high level of technical organization. The military academies produce engineers and administrators. The social sciences and management are taught, along with professional subjects, and the officers are encouraged to earn civilian diplomas.^[24] Of course, the official mission of the Venezuelan officer is the defense of the frontiers. The disputes with Colombia and Guyana in the Gulf of Maracaibo and Essequibo are serious enough to occupy

them. But officers, as former president Carlos Andres Pérez recently recalled, "are not outside the social and economic life of the country."^[25] Trained for functions that are extramilitary in the strict sense, the Venezuelan officers are particularly interested in problems of development. The political authorities provide them with opportunities for experience in that domain. The case of General R. Alfonzo Ravard, the head of the powerful Petroleos de Venezuela, is well known, but it is not an isolated case. Is this a utilization of skills or an ambiguous form of control? Upper-level officers are numerous in the nationalized sector; the management of development seems almost to be one of their essential tasks. The administration of the Guyana Corporation, the policy setting of the Price Control Council, and the education of technicians for the steel and aluminum industries are all dependent in varying degrees on a superior officer, if not on the army as a whole. The economic function of the military institution is therefore evident.

Besides involvement in decision making, which gives an important role to the army and can at the same time keep it out of political adventures, it is necessary to add the factor of its real organizational autonomy. The minister of defense is a superior officer. Carlos Andres Pérez reports that the general staff itself designated his military aides.^[26] It is true that the former president presents that situation as the result of a concern on his part not to politicize the army, but another reading is possible that seems to be confirmed by the difficulties that the Christian Democratic president, elected in 1979, Luis Herrera Campins, experienced with General Castro, head of the infantry. Other facts would tend to suggest that the Venezuelan armed forces also have political preferences. The influence of the Acción Democrática party in the ranks of the officers was decisive in the period of Betancourt. The pro-AD demonstrations by retired officers, and the fact that certain well-known military chiefs belonged to the families of representatives or leaders of the party, could have given the impression that there was a dominant military faction that was favorable to the Social Democrats. This would be another method of civilian control that could pose serious problems for the Christian Democrats if they wanted to end that situation. Insofar as they succeeded in depo-

liticizing recruitment and promotions, this would contribute to an increase in the autonomy and therefore of the political resources of the Venezuelan army.

Civilian Authoritarianism and the Demilitarization of Political Life in Mexico

With a powerful president and a single-party democracy, postrevolutionary Mexico is difficult to define, indeed to understand: an anonymous dictatorship by a party that is dominant but not the only party provides a case of troubling rarity in the continent. For our purposes the sources of its stability and demonstrated civilian preponderance lie in the strength of the state and the legitimacy of a party that is mistaken for it. The well-named Party of Institutionalized Revolution (PRI) is the "party of the state."^[27] It is all powerful and nothing escapes its purview; thus, it is not surprising that a system that controls everything should also control the military.

Since 1920, the year of the assassination of Venustiano Carranza and of his uprising against Alvaro Obregón, no coup d'état has been successful in Mexico. The presidents have been chosen by the official party since its establishment in 1929 and "regularly" elected. The last military rebellion of any significance goes back to 1940. At that time General Almazán, along with a considerable number of officers, rebelled against the result of the elections. The rebellion failed. Avila Camacho, elected in 1940, was the last general to occupy the presidency; his successor, Miguel Alemán, initiated the regime of the licenciados (university graduates) and civilian bureaucrats. It is true that Alemán was the son of a general, and his successor, Ruiz Cortines, had reached the rank of comandante in the armies of the revolution—thus both were known in military circles.^[28]

References to the revolution are not merely an ideological or rhetorical device used by those in power. We must go back to that great upheaval to understand the fifty years of civilian supremacy observed by the official party in 1979. In the beginning, therefore, was the "revolution," a gigantic social and

political upheaval. The federal army of the dictator, Porfirio Díaz, against which the liberal bourgeoisie, Indian peasants, socialist intellectuals and opportunistic fighters rose up, was dismantled in 1914–15. The reign of the "warlords" began at that time. Each caudillo was master of his army, and, through his army, of the land that he occupied. Victoriano Huerta, Venustiano Carranza, Pancho Villa, and Emiliano Zapata were the different competing leaders of the revolutionary troops. They had behind them hundreds of thousands of men—and indeed of women, for those adelitas along with the military trains in fact played a decisive role in those armies that had no commissaries or adequate medical services. With the exception of the counterrevolutionary, Huerta, all the leaders, generals, and superior officers were civilians. The toughest ones occupied the upper echelons of the hierarchy. Alvaro Obregón was a ranchero from Sonora, Pablo Gonzalez was a miller, and Zapata, as is well known, was a small peasant and Villa was a cattle-thief.^[29]

It is not surprising that those improvised leaders who rose up against the police and the army of Díaz should for the most part demonstrate a violent antimilitarism that was never totally to disappear from the official ideology. Villa was always against a standing army. Carranza, one of the most "military" of all, refused to be called generalissimo and had himself addressed as "first chief." In fact, the warlords of Mexico were at the head of political parties in arms and not of military institutions. This did not prevent these more or less military amateurs from living on the country by the force of arms.

These predatory armies that were difficult to demobilize were very expensive for the budget. The multiplicity of centers of power and the violent political rivalries divided the state and weakened a nation that economically was in ruins. Reconstruction was carried out by gaining control of the turbulent "generals" and unifying the centrifugal forces. Obregón, and especially Plutarco Calles, the caudillo maximo whose shadow hung over Mexico from 1924 until 1935, established the bases of the modern Mexican system. To accomplish this, after the violent elimination of the war leaders who could not be assimilated or dealt with (Zapata was assassinated in 1919, Villa in 1923), he

ended the power of the regional caciques while at the same time creating an army and centralizing political institutions. To demilitarize politics it was necessary in effect to militarize the military. Thus, the old military college was remodeled, an advanced war school was opened, and the careers of the officers were regularized. However, the essential thing was to force the "revolutionaries"—that is, the victors—to unite and to accept certain rules of the game. The first rule was to resolve differences through institutions and not by violent means. The unification of the "revolutionary family" was carried out by the Party of the Revolution.

That party, created by the state and not designed to win competitive elections, had as its first objective to unify and dominate the armed political factions. It was henceforth supposed to be the legitimate political arena where the revolutionary forces were to discuss their common interests. However, the transfer of power to the party only took place after the military had been disciplined by Calles, who made use of the army to impose his own control over the country during a period of ten years. Under his maximato the army seemed to be at the pinnacle of power and covered with honors. Whether president or not, Calles ruled the destinies of the nation through the instrument of the military. He went so far as to add a Festival of the Soldier to the calendar and the principal ministries were in the hands of generals of the revolution (Amaro, Cedillo, Riva Palacio, etc.).

Yet in fact Calles and his successors, including Lázaro Cárdenas, himself also a "general" who got rid of the mentor who had chosen him in 1935, institutionalized the revolution by putting an end to the confusion of roles each time that it seemed to be dysfunctional for the strengthening of the state.

Carried out by pseudo-military men, the triumph of the state over the centrifugal forces—in the view of some observers a continuation of the modernization carried out by Porfirio Díaz^[30] —made the party preeminent over the army. The army, after having been dissolved, reorganized, and put back on its feet by the indefatigable General Amaro was incorporated into the National Revolutionary Party along the sectoral model of the totalitarian parties of Europe. When it became the Party of

the Mexican Revolution under Cárdenas (1934–40) it had four sectors: peasants, workers, the popular sector—in fact, a catch-all—and the military. Thus, paradoxically, the military were politicized in order to demilitarize politics and to neutralize the military by involving them politically in a subordinate position.

The risk was minor. The modernized and professionalized armed forces were no more than a part of the state bureaucracy. Cárdenas, facing an incipient Catholic guerrilla effort (the last convulsions of the bloody Cristero uprising against the antireligious policy of Calles), as well as the hostility of the United States following the nationalization of petroleum in 1938, placed strict controls on the army. In addition, this was both justified and counterbalanced by the creation of a peasant militia. After 1940 "with the lessening of foreign pressures on Mexico it was no longer necessary to keep the military captive within the party."^[31] Avila Camacho ended that situation. The political bureaucracy was well established and the "Party of the State" paradoxically began to impose a military discipline at the same time that the military was removed from politics. The postrevolutionary Mexican system as we know it today had taken on its definitive form.

Few armies in the continent appear to be less politically involved. It is true that until recently it was difficult to separate its leaders from the political class so that it was not necessary for them to intervene militarily in order to demonstrate their power. Since the time that officers who have been trained at the military schools have reached the highest levels, this type of "subjective control" is less and less operative. The small numbers in the armed forces and the low level of budgetary allocations are good indications that the Mexican armed forces as an institution are relatively weak.^[32] Considering the importance of the country, its size, its wealth, and its regional role, there is reason to be surprised at that limitation of the military. In a way the demilitarization of politics has produced the demilitarization of the state.

Besides the antimilitary tradition already noted, we should note that the Mexican army, which has been dissolved several times in the course of its history as a result of civilian confrontations, has very little legitimacy of its own (beyond the revolutionary legitimacy that the PRI alone embodies) or ideological

resources to demand lavish budgets or special institutional considerations. In addition Mexico, located between the giant of North America and the ministates of the Central American isthmus, does not need a powerful defensive apparatus. It has nothing to fear from Guatemala, which is one-twentieth the size of Mexico, and it can do nothing with respect to the United States, the most important industrial and military power in the world, except respect its security interests. There is not even a question in this situation of competition for regional leadership. It is no surprise that the second largest country in Latin America has an army hardly larger than those of Chile, Colombia, or Peru, and half as large as that of Argentina, which has a population of less than half that of Mexico.^[33] Even military service is demilitarized, halfway between a census of a cohort and a fresh-air camp. This is why the colonel who was assistant chief of staff of the first military region could declare in a speech to conscripts in the Zocalo of Mexico City in front of President Díaz Ordaz in 1967, "In conformity with its ideological principles Mexico is a nonmilitarist state. This is why these who participate in national military service spend only a brief period in the ranks of the army, not to receive training as soldiers there, but to learn there the principles of discipline, honor, and loyalty and to return to civilian life in possession of those solid virtues."^[34]

In fact, however, while the military do not intervene in politics, especially not to disturb or subvert "revolutionary" institutions, they are not absent from national life, and officers participate in important ways in the functioning of the system. One might conclude that the large number of military men who were in positions of power until recently reflected a preprofessionalized status involving a "revolutionary" confusion of roles. Thus, until 1964 a general presided over the official party, perhaps in order to discipline, by military means if necessary, the internal opposition and to assure the unity of the PRI.^[35] In 1948 under Miguel Alemán fifteen of the thirty-one governors were military men—as against only one in 1972 during the presidency of Luis Echeverría. On the other hand, the number of officers in the Congress has remained nearly constant at between fifteen and thirty since 1946, with twenty-two in 1953 and seventeen in 1972.^[36] It is true that these are quasi-honorific posts without

power in a system in which the executive dominates everything, but nevertheless they symbolize effective political participation.

In fact, the military are in a certain way one of the pillars of the coalition along with the PRI, the presidency, and the trade unions. The authoritarian nature of the regime, as well as the intermittent outbreaks of armed struggle that have appeared since the beginning of the 1960s, have increased their repressive role. The many forms of rural agitation, ranging from uprisings involving the invasion of land to the appearance of social bandits in Guerrero, have been suppressed by military force. Force is also frequently used in industrial conflicts, to say nothing of the operation of civic action against natural calamities because of the isolation or underadministration of certain regions. Thus the military are named as zonal commanders in areas that are volatile (Guerrero, Oaxaca).

While the power of the military has disappeared, the Mexican military have still remained very close to politics. In addition to the historical processes that we have analyzed, their subordination depends on a subtle game of differentiated selective compensation. Some writers recalling the comment of Obregón regarding the generals who could not resist a salvo of 500,000 pesos have even spoken of corruption. An incident that took place in 1980 involving the award of a national literary prize to writer Juan Rulfo proves that civilian and military governmental authorities are sensitive even to references to that possibility. Rulfo's acceptance speech was refuted at the highest official levels for explaining military respect for law as resulting from "the price for peace" that was paid by the regime to its defenders.

While corruption exists the special relationship of the military to the regime uses other more readily admissible methods as well. There again the omnipotence of the president plays a central role. The monarchical character of the regime is such that the officers believe that, if not their promotions, at least their marginal personal benefits are the result of the concern of the president. It is true that among the superior officers the base salary only forms a part of one's income that varies depending on the job (one or several) and the post occupied (according to region). Variations in military salaries can be a factor

that encourages docility and dependence, especially when officers who are on active duty can receive civilian employment without losing their military salaries, thus providing a substantial supplement to their ordinary incomes.^[37] Thus one can be both an active-duty officer and an inspector of bridges and highways or a customs officer. As in the civilian bureaucracy, personal relations and patronage are in full play and help to reduce the autonomy of the military.

In Mexico a weak army, far from dominating the system, is selectively integrated within it through a system of clientelistic transactions. The military are not absent from the scene. There is no doubt that they are consulted on programs relating to public order, but their margin of maneuver is limited by the power and cohesion of the party-state. The slow pace of the gradual transition from warriors to military men and from politicians in arms to professional officers has permitted the maintenance of certain mechanisms of subjective control through the fusion and confusion of origins and roles. Military men who are so little independent of the party-political apparatus do not yet constitute a force.

Colombia: Oligarchic Democracy and Limited Militarization

Judging from its principal sociocultural indicators, there are few countries in Latin America with conditions less favorable to democracy and political stability than Colombia. In addition to the poverty of large sections of the society, it has a high level of illiteracy, a lack of national integration—both geographic and human—a powerful and theocratic Catholic church, large land holdings that are practically untouchable, and a heritage of political violence that has been continued by Marxist guerrillas.^[38] Yet Colombia has had a two-party political system that during the twentieth century has given it a constitutional continuity rare in the continent. From 1910 until 1949 the political system was an open and competitive one. Alternation in power was not only possible but took place twice; in 1930 and in 1946 the opposition won the elections and took power. Furthermore,

despite Castroite and pro-Soviet guerrilla activities during the 1960s, the Communist party is legal. All the varieties of the left including the extreme left run candidates freely, as could be seen in 1978. Finally, the supremacy of civilian power seems well established. If we put aside the brief period of military dictatorship in 1953–57, beginning in 1958 the presidents also appear to have made themselves respected and did not permit military encroachment. In 1969 President Carlos Lleras removed the commander of the armed forces, General Pinzón Caicedo, for opposing civilian control of military spending and protesting the inadequacy of the military budget. No garrison came to his support. In 1975 and 1977 President López Michelson had no difficulty retiring from office Generals Puyana, Valencia Tovar, and Matallana, who were leading figures in the army and were openly criticizing the conduct of the government. Finally, political life, which is very personalized and a bit provincial, does not seem to involve recourse to the barracks.

Let us see the reality and the players behind that brilliant facade. Not long ago Bogotá claimed to be the Athens of the Americas, and, in fact Athenian-style democracy functions in Colombia. The electoral abstention rate was 60 percent in 1978 and in the large cities participation does not exceed 25 percent of those registered.^[39] As for the army, it is weak,^[40] poor, and without prestige. Its officers generally have a low level of training. Military professionalization came late to Colombia. After the so-called Thousand Days Civil War (1899–1902) the governments made efforts to transform the rival party bands into a national army. That process of modernization was only completed in 1943, the date at which the highest positions in the hierarchy were held by graduates of the military school.^[41] Military salaries still remain very moderate today. In November 1980 the retired officers, speaking in the name of those on active duty, asked for parity in their salaries with those of the public schoolteachers and university professors.^[42]

The other particular characteristic of this army is that it has been in operation for more than thirty years. Its role is intimately linked to the rural phenomenon of la violencia, the rampant civil war between the Liberals and the Conservatives that resulted in some three hundred thousand to four hundred thousand deaths

between 1948 and 1956 and only ended to be replaced by guerrillas of the left.^[43] The army therefore is dispersed, atomized, and involved in controlling insecure areas and pursuing rebellious and unpacified elements. Organized for counterguerrilla operations into small detachments, although it is not an army designated for coups d'état it is not without power, if only on the local level. In the zones of violence or guerrilla activity it is not unusual for an officer or noncommissioned officer to be the mayor; the role of the local garrison is not that established in the constitution. The army therefore operates at the heart of the system of power, but militarism in the conventional form of the usurpation of government has only occurred once in the history of contemporary Colombia.

One cannot insist too much on the importance of the two-party system for better, and undoubtedly for worse—in the life of the nation. We can say that there is nothing of any importance that goes on outside that distinctly oligarchic structure, for the Colombian political class is known for its social homogeneity. It is not unusual for even the opposition that rejects the system to be led by the offspring of the great families.^[44] Colombian politics is indeed, as has been written, a "conversation among gentlemen."^[45] However, while the two parties meet and come to agreements at the top, their bases are mobilized against one another with an historic hatred that was insurmountable for a long time and produced the most pitiless and atrocious violence, la violencia. The force of family and hereditary party identification acts as an obstacle to class solidarity and tightens the vertical links of social domination. The two-party system that is so functional for the stability of society blocks any process of popular participation even of the populist type. The two parties as a means of control have "been in the twentieth century the most serious political obstacle to social change."^[46] This bipartisan society that is not threatened by opposition mass movements functions in a relatively weak state, totally penetrated by the political system. It is not surprising that the two parties are intermediaries for everything, including the army.

The modern Colombian army was created under the aegis of the Conservative party that was in power for the first thirty years of this century. The attempts of the Liberal presidents

after 1930 to favor the officers who came from Liberal families and to neutralize the army through the counterweight of the police only resulted in moving the military closer to the Conservative party.

The unsuccessful coup d'état of 1944 against President Alfonso López, who was detained by the garrrison of Pasto, and the purge of Conservative officers following the incident tended in the same direction. Today, when the majority of the officers are recruited, as everywhere else, from the middle class, it is often the sons of the Conservative oligarchy that arrive at the highest positions in the hierarchy. Nevertheless, the military leaders are careful to maintain the neutrality of the institution.

The bogotazo in 1948 and la violencia that followed it transformed the army and led to its direct participation in power. With the return of the Conservatives to power in 1946 the system entered into a crisis. As electoral participation reached unexpectedly high levels in Colombia,^[47] a Liberal leader, Eliecer Gaitán, tried to mobilize the lower classes against the oligarchy. A Colombian type of populism was being created around a caudillo who denounced the existing separation between the pays légal of the programs of the politicians and the misery of the pays réel . The ruling elements were terrified. On 9 April 1948 Gaitán was assassinated. His supporters came out in the streets and Bogotá was filled with fire and blood. A part of the police force with Liberal sympathies joined the rioters.

La violencia was born at that time—as a result of the exclusion of the Liberals from constitutional politics and the coming to power of Ospina Pérez by means of a civilian coup d'état. The Conservative dictatorship that was imposed with the support of the army became more repressive with the election to the presidency in 1950 (thanks to the abstention of the Liberals) of an extreme rightest and admirer of Franco—Laureano Gomez. This situation left the opposition no other avenue but that of rebellion. Thus the Liberal guerrillas were produced. The civil war between the parties was grafted onto the vendettas between villages of differing party loyalties, struggles for the control of land, or personal hatreds.^[48] The army that was close to power carried out a pacification program in support of the Conservative party without internal problems. It did not split as was expected,

but its leaders did not appreciate the doctrinaire extremism of the "Laureanistas." It was also evident that since 1946 the military had been increasing their power substantially. In 1946 a quarter of the municipal governments were assigned military administrators; in 1948 the Ministry of War and several provincial governorships were put into the hands of the army, and in 1949 three generals entered the cabinet. Guardians of the social order and the political status quo, the military—who had not played any separate role in the violation of democratic institutions—did not intend to wage a civil war uncertain of outcome on behalf of the Conservatives.

The phenomenon of la violencia, a sociopolitical crisis that is unique in the history of contemporary Latin America, is not easy to understand, even today with the passage of time. For some it was a bloody method to "crush at the beginning any hint of a political class consciousness in the lower levels of Colombian society,"^[49] as well as a way to expropriate the property of the small and medium farmers to the benefit of the large landowners (nearly four hundred thousand properties were abandoned). For others la violencia destroyed traditional social controls, but the survival of oligarchic democracy demonstrates the weakness of the threat, which had been magnified by a Conservative party with minority support among the people which had refused to accept its permanent exclusion from the benefits of the state.^[50]

In any case, for many of the military and for the moderates in both parties, Laureano Gómez and the Conservatives had gone too far. The president would have to be removed and the Liberals reintegrated into public life to assure the peace. The idea of a military dictatorship began to make headway, being favorably received both by the Conservatives, who feared the decomposition of the economic and social system, and by the Liberals, who expected that it would mean an end to the ostracism that had been imposed upon them. In particular the Conservatives did not want needed reforms, while the Liberals were ready to reestablish "the party of order" along with them on condition that they were no longer treated as enemies. This is how General Rojas Pinilla was brought in as head of the state in 1953 in a "public opinion coup," as it is still referred to in

Bogotá. He came to power without great enthusiasm, according to his close associates,^[51] but with the broad support of all social groups and to the relief of the principal members of the political class. By chance the price of coffee on the world market was at its peak. The economic bonanza operated in favor of the new government that represented civil peace. An amnesty was proclaimed. A majority of the Liberal guerrillas laid down their arms, and a more peaceful outlook began to prevail.

However, the policy of Rojas Pinilla was not unanimously supported by the wealthy. His economic orientation was far from the laissez-faire gospel of the Colombian elites. The state intervened, constructed large public works, and aided industry. Still worse, the social policy of the regime was based on generous subsidies to lower-class consumers. Even more, Rojas Pinilla understood that the traditional parties were against him and were opposed to any social change, and he tried to break out of the two-party framework. He even created his own party, the Alianza Nacional Popular (ANAPO) in the purest tradition of populism. But Colombia is not Argentina and his "Peronism" was nipped in the bud by the Conservatives and Liberals who soon saw the danger and became reconciled with one another in the face of the adversary.

The "New Bolívar," as he had been called by a Conservative leader in 1953, was now only an ambitious dictator whom the bourgeois aristocracy removed from government. The parties, for their part, signed a pact of nonaggression and cooperation in Spain that in view of the bloodshed would have been surprising to anyone who was not familiar with the two levels on which the system operated. According to what was called the National Front Agreement that was to be ratified by referendum, the two parties would succeed one another in the presidency from 1958 until 1978, and they would share all political and administrative positions on an equal basis. The National Front guaranteed that no party would be deprived of the spoils in a country in which the state was one of the principal industries. If party exclusivity was at the root of the violence, the National Front provided the key to peace. A new system was put into place. The dualism of war at the base and collaboration at the summit was no longer in effect. Parity permitted the Conservatives, for a long

time a minority party in the country, to survive, and the fiction of a two-party system would prevent modern mass parties from being created. However, as was sometimes said, the National Front was a two-party agreement involving three partners—the third being the army that solidified the alliance. The recognition of the Conservative party by the Liberals prevented them from resorting to the power of the military, and the army in effect made up for the weakness of the Conservatives.

Colombia in recovery thus returned to oligarchic politics, but the National Front with its party system was equivalent in fact to a single party. If political demobilization was one of its goals, it succeeded perfectly. In each election abstention became a little greater. Most of the time people simply refused to vote and this reduced the legitimacy of the regime. The cooptation of the trade unions by the parties did not prevent other forms of popular participation from emerging, as was demonstrated by the general strike of September 1977.^[52] The domination by the party of order represented by the Front did not continue without an increase in authoritarianism—not only because of the last outbursts of la violencia but because the official coalition did not offer any political alternative. From 1958 on, with the help and support of the army, every attempt to go beyond the system to modernize political life and to allow the masses to participate in public life was pitilessly combated. The state of siege under which democratic Colombia has been living totally or partially since 1958 under the pretext that "public order is disturbed" is the real constitution of the country. Lifted at one point by Carlos Lleras, reestablished by Miguel Pastrana after the disputed elections of 1970, rebaptized by López Michelson, it was increased in intensity again under Julio Turbay Ayala after 1978. In twenty years of the National Front, Colombia has had fifteen under "a state of exception" that increases the powers of the executive and allows him to suspend constitutional rights and freedoms in order to reestablish public order.^[53]

The army plays the essential and decisive role of defender of the two-party system in that "constitutional dictatorship." The government turns to it to eliminate political alternatives when they cannot be assimilated through cooptation or "trans -

formismo ." The system is rather simple. It consists in closing every legal avenue to the outsider, as the Conservatives tried to do to the Liberals in 1949. Against the last violent irreconcilable elements, the recourse is to the army. That was the fate that befell the sociologist-priest Camilo Torres, the creator of the popular political movement, the Frente Unido, who took to armed resistance in 1966 and was killed in the same year while fighting in the ranks of the Army of National Liberation (ELN). This was also the case with the ANAPO of General Rojas Pinilla, who according to many observers won the 1970 elections and was the victim of an electoral fraud carried out in favor of the National Front candidate—although not without producing some disturbance in the army. By 1976 the ANAPO had practically disappeared. In 1974 its last members had founded the M-19 guerrilla movement that proceeded to organize spectacular seizures, all the while being unceasingly hunted by the army.^[55]

That exploitation of official violence and of the follow-up to la violencia developed by the Castroites in the 1960s was as useful to the regime as its resources were limited. The National Front, by destroying the sense of belonging and of identification with a political community, visibly reduced the traditional means of social control. Urbanization accelerated that process. The system could only survive in the absence of an alternative. In these conditions the autonomy of the military in relation to the power of the parties increased both de jure and de facto. The special legal provisions gave the military a free hand and little by little they encroached on the power of the civilians in the area of public order and of the courts, and extended their responsibilities more generally. The militarization of la Guajira to fight against the drug traffic, the occupation of the emerald mines in Boyacá to prevent smuggling, and the use of officers to run the customs did not please everyone in the ranks of the military. Some said—correctly—that this was a source of corruption, and this seems to be confirmed by various accounts carried in the press.^[56] It remains to know who profited from that arrangement. The situation was a source of corruption and demoralization, perhaps, but it was also a proof that the weakened civilian power needed military support at whatever price.

For Turbay Ayala that price seems to have been the adoption of the Security Statute that had been requested in vain from his predecessor by the military.

Decree 1923 of 6 September 1978 called the Security Statute and directed at both ordinary and political crimes, makes the right to strike a criminal offense (article 4), limits freedom of the press and of organization (article 13), and gives military courts jurisdiction over disturbance of the public order. Since its adoption, arbitrary arrests of protesters and critical intellectuals have multiplied. Military courts are even used against Indians who claim their lands,^[57] and many cases of the torture of prisoners have been denounced by reliable authorities.^[58] The combination of the autonomy of the military and the assignment of many responsibilities to the army empties civilian power of its content. According to the former foreign minister, Vásquez Carrizosa, "The president is becoming the head of a tropical republic,"^[59] and the real chief executive was the defense minister, General Luis Carlos Camacho Leyva. It seems that the time has passed when the president could remove the minister of defense or the commander-in-chief, yet despite the suspicions of a process like that in Uruguay, where President Bordaberry cooperated in a military takeover, the regime is still a civilian one.^[60]

While this invading army appears to a part of public opinion as the last bastion against the "decomposition of the democratic system,"^[61] the military chiefs seem in no hurry to follow the course of usurpation. Strongly supporting the elected president, the Colombian army has not taken power, perhaps because no one really desires it and also because it is not necessary. The military chiefs are sufficiently aware of the experience of neighboring countries to know the risks of direct exercise of government.^[62] Besides, the state of siege and the Security Statute are the legal equivalent of a military dictatorship. One might say further that the military only respected the civilian form of government to the degree that the government respected the military elements of the regime.

In fact, the Colombian political system cannot be described in simplistic dichotomies. The army seems to have all the power that it desires. Colombian-style militarization therefore

is limited to the area of public order and does not extend, for example, to the economic area as in other countries. With a free hand in the struggle against the guerrillas and an unprecedented autonomy in financial and organizational matters, the military accept the fact that other areas of the state are not under their control. Today more than ever the Colombian state appears to be made up of three parts. A weak state dominated by employers' associations to whom it delegates substantial power has given up to the private sector a good part of its economic responsibilities.^[63] The military "manage" public order freely and intervene in decisions that affect national defense in the broad sense, including foreign relations. Finally, the parties divide the spoils of the state, distributing jobs and sinecures in the best clientelist tradition. This "sectorization" of power guarantees a balance that remains problematic. But what appears to be new in the present Colombian situation is not "limited democracy," since the country has known nothing else, nor a "police state,"^[64] but perhaps a kind of "limited militarization" that compensates for the erosion of social control by the two parties that resulted from the National Front.

The Uncertainties of the Constitutional Order

No state in Latin America or elsewhere is safe from military intervention, however little the bitterness of sociopolitical conflict threatens the rules of legal coexistence. Thus we can ask how these "model democracies" have survived in a highly militarized environment and a world crisis that has had adverse effects on the less developed countries. In reality the rule of the military in neighboring countries, perhaps because its recent accomplishments are not particularly brilliant, acts to some degree as a deterrent. This is the case in Colombia, where both civilians and the military seem to be quite aware of the weaknesses and risks of solutions that rely on force.

To continue speaking of Colombia, it is certain that the appeals to the army on the part of the civilian politicians, as well as the exaggerated praise given by the executive since 1978 to the

surbordination of the military, are indications of an unhealthy institutional situation. The increase in social conflict since 1975, the enormous impact of national or local civic general strikes that raised the specter of the bogotazo,^[65] revealed that the regime was defenseless. The weakening of the two trade union federations, Liberal and Conservative in tendency, has increased the importance of a left that is still atomized.^[66] Its decline and indiscipline have produced a multiplicity of conflicts. The government kept denouncing "industrial guerrilla warfare," thus providing new pretexts for military encroachment.

The emergence of a class of nouveaux riches often on the basis of sources that cannot be explained but nearly always tied to the "tentacles of the underground economy,"^[67] does not help to reinvigorate the moral fiber of the democracy. The "cocaine dollars" laundered in "special" departments of the banks promote frantic speculation and humiliating corruption. The traditional Colombian bourgeoisie is disturbed by these dubious activities that challenge its power and status. Drugs and drug traffickers add to the social insecurity that is becoming generalized. The destabilizing effect of that economic and social decomposition is immediately apparent. Are the frightened new and old members of the propertied class ready to throw themselves into the arms of a savior in uniform? In any case, the military are asking themselves sadly about their role. Some make it known openly that they fought against an enemy—the guerrillas—whose critical attitude toward Colombian society they share.^[68] Having discovered in the field the social problems and the misery that affect the majority of their fellow citizens, they reject force alone as a way to end subversion; instead, they blame the state that has given them the thankless task of making up "with fire and sword" for the inability of the system to provide a minimum of social justice. The reformist attitude of the military also applies to the particular domain of the parties. They criticize the effects of electoral clientelism on democratic procedures and the capacities of the state. At the other extreme of the ideological spectrum an anti-Communist crusading spirit is making headway, as is proven both by recent military writings and also by the active participation of the Colombian military leaders in a continent-wide antisubversive plan. In October

of 1979 these officers hosted for that purpose the Twenty-third Conference of Latin American Commanders-in-Chief in Bogotá.^[69] It is an historical paradox that the Colombian army, which engaged in "regular" warfare in the East-West Korean Conflict, and which since la violencia has waged "irregular"^[70] warfare, entered the cold war very late. Here the army discovered the messianic and reductionist mirage of "national security" at a time when neighboring countries were getting rid of that narrow ideological straitjacket. Caught in the crossfire, space for the civilians is in danger of being constricted. How much longer will the Colombian army remain "an example for the whole continent," as its rulers have been repeating for a number of years?

No doubt Venezuela appears as an island of serenity alongside its Andean neighbor. However, since we are to develop scenarios for the future while being aware that they are not the only possible ones, we cannot exclude developments in Venezuela that threaten the civilian order, since that happy and prosperous island (of democracy) confronts acute problems. In the area of politics a new third party has arisen, made up of ex-Communists and former guerrilla members, the Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS) that has upset the COPEI/AD arrangement to the disadvantage of the latter party. Some think that the MAS could even alter, if not overthrow, the system of relations between the politicians and the army by trying to penetrate the armed forces with a view to politicizing them in a reformist or revolutionary direction.^[71] It is true that the efforts of the left to find another base in the military similar to the one it had in 1960 do not seem to have been successful. But the replacement of the generation of the founding fathers who signed the Pact of Punto Fijo could lead the civilian politicians to forget the essential rules of the game regarding relations with the military. That could produce a politically difficult situation as petroleum revenues decline, because of the pronounced drop in prices and sales. Already unplanned expenses and massive industrial projects and an excess in short-term indebtedness have led to high inflation, an end to growth,^[72] and doubt on the part of the inhabitants of a country that was accustomed to constantly rising economic indicators. What would be only a temporary prob-

lem for other less well endowed countries evidently could shatter a democracy used to affluence.

It is not only the recent petroleum prosperity that threatens to destabilize the solid Mexican "democracy." The erosion of the legitimacy of the regime goes back to the massacres at Tlatelolco in 1968.^[73] Since then "nonviolent" methods have not been sufficient. "Revolutionary" rhetoric and state control of the mass organizations have lost their effectiveness in a class society, and public violence has often replaced populist emphasis on unanimity. In a public opinion poll carried out among the inhabitants of Mexico City in 1977, 67 percent of those polled said that they had never participated in political life.^[74] In electoral figures this was translated into an increase in the number of abstentions between 1961 and 1976 of around 40 percent.^[75] Against this tendency of the political system to lose support the regime resorted to "revolutionary" ideology under the presidency of Luis Echeverría, and then to an electoral reform under his successor, López Portillo. That reform, aimed at legalizing the opposition parties and allowing them to be represented in the Congress without affecting the dominant role of the PRI, perhaps did help to weaken the left by legitimating it, but it did not diminish the indifference, indeed the rejection of the system, on the part of the citizenry. The abstention rate in the 1979 elections, the first ones to be held under the new law, was more than 50 percent; for the first time the number of voters was less than the number of those who abstained.^[76]

In these conditions the petroleum wealth could have an unexpected effect on the stability of that "single-party democracy." It is certain that in a mass society that is more and more mobile and urbanized, this has raised the level of expectation of the whole forgotten population, of all those of the "revolution's poor"^[77] who have not benefited from the "stabilizing development" of the last twenty years. Aroused by public and private ostentation and by the heady atmosphere of the economic boom, these social groups require a rapid response to their expectations.^[*] The lack of any possible alternative in power

[*] This was written before the economic crisis in Mexico, which began in August 1982. (Translator's note.)

deprives the system of a resource that can be used to diminish the pressure. And the swings of the pendulum in the orientations of the presidents no longer have the moderating psychological impact that a true two-party system could offer. This is all the more true because although a well-established petroleum production that is operating at full capacity can permit a politically useful redistribution of income in a society, it is not occurring in the current phase of the Mexican extractive industry—to say nothing of the unfavorable situation in the international petroleum market since the beginning of 1981. On the contrary the burden of investment in equipment and infrastructure to develop the oil industry has created bottlenecks in manufacturing which has not been able to keep up with the dynamism of petroleum, a deepening of the agricultural crisis, and a level of inflation that had been unknown up to now. At least in the short term, there is nothing that can resolve the tensions produced by poverty and underdevelopment.

In addition, the international economic situation is no longer favorable. The ambiguous foreign policy of Mexico that maintains good relations with Washington and defends progressive causes in the name of self-determination and the liberation of peoples is, we know, an important resource for the "revolutionary" ideology. A worsening in the Central American situation, the firm opposition of Washington to the Nicaraguan Sandinista government and to the guerrillas in El Salvador or Guatemala—indeed a possible direct intervention by the United States in that part of the world in order to "contain" the presumed Soviet influence—could lead Mexico to painful choices. If, as is thought, Mexico and the United States have identical political goals in Central America and if Mexico is not indifferent to the multiplication of Marxist-Leninist regimes on its doorstep, how long can it still maintain the contradiction between an authoritarian internal development and a foreign policy that flirts with its ideological adversaries? With all that, the Mexican army, because of the situation on the southern frontiers of the country, is in the process of securing new equipment at the same time that the traditional commanders are being replaced by military men who are products of the military schools, increasing the possibilities of autonomy.

These are the dangers that Mexico must face today and tomorrow, even though it is clear that it possesses considerable resources as well.

Even in Costa Rica today there is a more or less surreptitious remilitarization as increasing numbers of Costa Ricans, frightened by the revolutionary developments taking place and the Cuban presence in Nicaragua, are thinking of reestablishing the army.^[78] Those who fear the danger of Central American contagion and the operation of the domino theory are happy with the unification of the security forces and the militarization of certain police units, as well as the creation of a police academy to educate its leadership—all of which have happened recently. However, it is not just because the country finds itself near the field of battle that pacifistic rhetoric is no longer reassuring. The "welfare state" is in bankruptcy. The bad economic situation, due to the high price of petroleum and the fluctuations of the coffee market, is not the only cause. In addition, more and more frequent and bitter labor disputes have produced among the property holders a disturbing anti-Communist and anti-Nicaraguan hysteria. Groups on the extreme right are emerging and becoming vocal, while attacks from the extreme left are frightening the country. Is Costa Rica getting involved in the same entanglements as did Uruguay? Will the "Switzerland of Central America" experience the same fate as "the Switzerland of South America"?

Civilian Supremacy, Its Ways and Means

If we have wished to project into the future the evolution of the "model democracies," it was not for the pleasure of being correct before others—we hope to be completely wrong in that respect—or in order to avoid accusation of irreversible categorization that is soon out of date. An author's vanity has no place here. We simply wished to show that the situations remain open and are never final, and that politics is not a matter of black and white but of infinite gradations. Our discussion of the possible crises in these civilian-controlled states should not conceal from us the variety of means that have permitted the

surbordination of the military to be maintained for a relatively long period in the Latin American context. It may perhaps be useful to summarize the various mechanisms that have assured that civilian supremacy.

The absence of a standing army when it is no longer necessary and even appears to be dysfunctional for the maintenance and continuation of the system is evidently the limiting case. Another would be the existence of the civilian functional equivalent of a military takeover that could take place through the establishment of a state of siege or of nonmilitary authoritarian rule. In that situation political intervention by the army is not necessary, whether because it engages in the limited repression that is adequate for a nonconsensual regime to survive, or because it is replaced in such functions by instruments that are not directly military (police, parties, state-controlled mass organizations, a single ideology, etc.). Besides these two ideal types that are not found in a pure state either in Colombia or in Mexico, nor completely in Costa Rica, there are many causes of military limitation or abstention. They are both of a military and a sociopolitical or economic character, and one must generally take into account all the factors. On the military side, contrary to general belief, weakness or late professionalization operate in favor of civilian supremacy. The fusion and confusion of political and military roles that were a source of instability in the nineteenth century appear in the mid-twentieth century to be a means of control of the armies.

The force and coherence of the party system also seems to play a decisive role, both when it is deeply rooted and identified with civil society, as in Colombia, and when it is confused with the state in a situation of historically legitimized monopoly, as in Mexico. In the latter case mass mobilization from above has permitted the regime to channel the lowest elements that could be dangerous to the status quo; in the first case a classical clientelistic mobilization has an analogous demobilizing effect.

The weakness of social involvement and the agreement not to resort to the army against the existing government relate to the very definition of democracy as compromise and—tacit or not—an agreement for social cooperation. In other words a

political regime in which the opposition is incorporated into the institutional system, the forces of the political and trade union left are weak, and popular participation is mediated and channeled or kept at the margin has more of a chance to resist militarization. Having said this, there is still no simple formula against the military tide; one can simply recall in a modest way the lessons of history. All the rest is only literature.

8—
From the Law-Abiding Military to the Terrorist State

If the worst is not always sure to happen, even on the continent with "open veins," since 1973 the model democracies have entered into a period of instability. In fact a long tradition of stability and the submission of the army to civilian power did not prevent Chile and Uruguay, almost simultaneously, from experiencing fierce and lasting military interventions. Before 1973 it was often observed that Chile had a developed political system that was more stable than those of France, Italy, and Germany, while on the same continent countries with greater resources and a better distribution of income had a far less harmonious and peaceful political experience.^[1] In Uruguay, a peaceful republic of European immigrants that had recently adopted a plural executive, public life was serene enough to prompt an observer to remark in 1960, that "the role of the military was so reduced that many Uruguayans had forgotten that they had an army."^[2] While in Chile the subordination of the military that had been established in 1932 by a Conservative government had never been seriously questioned, in Uruguay the military had not even participated in power in the twentieth century: the two coups d'état of Terra and Baldomir in 1933 and 1942 were carried out by the police and firemen because of the lack of interest of the army.

At the beginning of the 1980s the former "Switzerland of Latin America" had a sinister world record for political prison-

ers: one Uruguayan in six had been in prison for the crime of opposition.^[3] Torture had become an instrument of government practiced, according to some witnesses, by 90 percent of the officers,^[4] who used methods that reached a terrifying degree of scientific sophistication.^[5] Chile too does not take second place to the Uruguayan laboratory of repression, if only because the coup d'état of 11 September 1973 was one of the bloodiest that the continent has experienced. Thirty-five thousand died, including President Allende, who was killed, gun in hand, in the ruins of the presidential palace. The exploits of the political police of the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA), rebaptized the National Information Center (CNI) in 1977,^[6] which did not hesitate to assassinate its opponents, even outside the country, hardly improved the image of General Augusto Pinochet in world public opinion. Nevertheless the Chilean military, like their Uruguayan counterparts, does not intend to give up direct power before the last decade of this century.^[*] That durable hold has profoundly affected the societies of the two countries that since 1973 have experienced changes and structural reorganizations that are in some cases irreversible.

State, Social Class, and Political Stability in Chile since 1970

Chile after 1930 was a deviant case among the political configurations of the continent. Its political stability was based on a complex modern party system. In addition it included a significant representation of revolutionary and anticapitalist forces whose presence, even when a minority, would suffice to upset the ruling classes and the military elsewhere. It was because of an apparent resemblance to the party systems of the Mediterranean and Europe that the experience of the Popular Unity government between 1970 and 1973 so moved and divided France. Upon closer inspection we see that behind the superficial resemblances lay some significant and fascinating particular characteristics. The Radical party was social democratic in orientation. The Socialist party was not at all social democratic, but boasted

[*] Uruguay returned to democracy in 1985. (Translator's note.)

of its Marxism-Leninism and inclined rather to Cuba, giving only lip service to the electoral approach. In these conditions how does one explain the harmonious functioning of the democratic system and the possibilities of alternation from the Popular Front in 1938 to Popular Unity in 1970—in a dependent and underdeveloped country with extreme wealth side by side with extreme poverty, and in which immense social differences separate the grand bourgeoisie of the Club de la Union from the rotos in the callampas of Santiago or the fundos in the Central Valley? After September 1973 it is no longer appropriate to refer vaguely to "the Chilean spirit" or to "the tradition" unless those two loose concepts express the specific relation of the state and social classes in a dependent society with a special history.

We noted in an earlier chapter the advanced character of the establishment of a centralized state in Chile and the absence of centrifugal caudilloism at a time when neighboring countries were torn by the wars of independence. The "geographical folly" that is that ribbon of land between the Andes and the Pacific no doubt facilitated the centralization that was at the base of the state forged by Diego Portales. The War of the Pacific and the victory over Peru and Bolivia (1879–83) resulted in the annexation of the rich mining provinces of the north, consolidation of the unity of the country, and a change in its relationship to the world market. The victory in effect not only reinforced the prestige of the army but it also legitimated the power of the ruling class that the new export resources helped to unify around the state. The nitrate of the northern deserts developed by British companies became the essential source of national prosperity, but the principal basis for economic power was thus not under the direct control of the ruling classes. This is no doubt what made it possible to separate political and economic power and permitted the development of a representative system that was autonomous and the basis of its stability. A particular type of state corresponded to that particular form of dependence. The majestic structure of the Portalian state was transformed into the "enclave state" enriched by the taxes paid by the foreign companies for the nitrate industry. The ruling classes, practically exempt from taxation, divided the abundant revenues of foreign trade without conflict.^[7] The absence of accumulated power facili-

tated internal bargaining among the elements of the bourgeoisie and removed the temptation to establish exclusive control, thus supporting the operation of an aristocratic democracy based on a limited suffrage. The wealth of the state that continued as a result of the development of copper in the twentieth century, with American capital replacing that of the British, also permitted the early recruitment and continuous growth of a large bureaucracy that is one of the particular characteristics of the system.

In fact, it was through the state that a part of the middle class was integrated into the structure of power. The expansion of public services consolidated the traditional state and "nationalized" it by disassociating it, at least in appearance, from the decisions of the ruling classes; this created an image of neutrality and judicial and political independence that would constitute one of the enduring special features of Chile.^[8] The establishment of a diversified and specialized public sector and the appearance of a civil service tradition would also mean that the army did not have a monopoly on the professionalized elements of the state apparatus as one of its principal political resources. In these conditions it shared the dominant juridical ideology.

The fact that the main source of wealth was not under the direct control of the bourgeoisie and strengthened the power of the state seems to have acted to limit conflict within the propertied classes and allowed the entry of the middle classes into a system permeated with legalistic ideology and filled with administrative intermediaries. While the middle classes were incorporated electorally and socially after 1919 and especially after the depression, we should note that unlike Mexico and Venezuela they did not replace the hegemony of the oligarchy,^[9] but occupied a subordinate position in the framework of traditional domination.

That incorporation went along with (and perhaps was explained by) a relatively slow political mobilization. The gradual extension of the right to vote was not accompanied by a high degree of political participation such as might frighten the propertied classes. In 1952, 54 percent of the citizens who had the right to vote were not registered on the voting lists.^[10] The isolation of the peasants on their fundos, where the landowner

ruled by divine right, the force of personal dependence in the campaigns, and the nonexistence of agrarian unions in practice until 1965^[11] all helped to facilitate that exclusion. The absence of a break in the political development is also evidence of the strength and flexibility of the Conservative party, later the National party, which still received 20 percent of the votes in 1973 and earlier received between 25 percent and 35 percent of the votes. The negotiating capacity and the pragmatism of that political group was translated clearly into rules of the game that were not a vital danger to bourgeois domination, and a legalism and compromise that were functional for the maintenance of their control.

Another tangible consequence of the enclave economy was the structure of class relations. The organized working class was essentially located in the mining centers so that the relations of economic classes involved opposition between a Chilean proletariat and foreign employers. The parties and labor unions that arose beginning in 1920 and called for socialism were more anti-imperialist than anticapitalist or antiemployer.^[12] In contrast, since the workers' organizations had antagonistic relations with the local bourgeoisie that were more political than economic, it could tolerate them more easily. This does not mean—far from it—that basic social relations were idyllic and that the condition of the worker was a happy one in Chile. The massacres of Santa María de Iquique (1907)—two thousand deaths—of Punta Arenas in 1920, and of La Coruña in 1925—three thousand dead—and the brutal repression of strikes in Valparaiso in 1903 and in Santiago in 1905 mark the bloody history of the labor movement. Nevertheless, social hostility was moderated by the altered and muted character of a skewed class struggle in which conflict was transformed into political negotiation. Social conflict was entered onto the institutional timetable. It passed from the streets to the congress, from confrontation (many times repeated but nevertheless always isolated) to compromise.

Many other forces were involved in the establishment of the "compromise state" that underlay the mechanisms of democracy. We have said that the isolation of the mining centers—the pampa salitrera and the large copper installations in the

Atacama desert in the north, or the coal mines in the extreme south—permitted a very radicalized worker organization that did not endanger the established order. In any case the confrontation of the nitrate and copper miners with the representatives of the foreign companies and not with the Chilean bourgeoisie reinforced the indirect and fragmented character of class relations and facilitated their resolution in a strictly political framework. Ideological legalism, transmitted especially by a middle class that acted as a buffer and identified with the state and its workings, helped to contribute to political stability. Until the Popular Unity period, the Radical party that represented the independent and salaried middle sectors was the axis around which coalitions of the left were built; no party that was associated with the Popular Front ever questioned the rules of the game.^[13] The Popular Front, which came to power in 1938 and resembled its European counterpart only in name, was a developmentalist coalition that was to establish the bases for the state-promoted industrialization of the country. The participation of labor union confederations in the organizations of economic development and control increased the assimilation of the organized working class.^[14] The occasional intervention of the state in labor conflicts in favor of the workers also produced the convincing image of a neutral state above class—a situation that was sufficiently rare in Latin America to justify its being noted.

The Chilean army was the army of that state. Out of the political situation from the time of its progressively oriented intervention in the years 1925–32 emerged an army that included all social classes, just as the state appeared to be one that represented the whole people. Along with the isolation of military society—whose members were cut off from civilian life and were turned in on their own special values^[15] —went one political taboo: do not touch "grande muette" (the strong silent one). Legalism also affected the defense apparatus. Regis Debray could write accurately that the values of law and of parliamentarism are internalized in Chile even by the parties that represent the workers.^[16] This is even more true for the military. If before 1970 there was general agreement on the legal system and if the labor movement accepted the fact that the class strug-

gle was to be carried out on the carefully delineated symbolic terrain of the political arena, it was no different for the military. Whatever the feelings and convictions of the officers, the majority consensus in the armed forces favored supporting those who held legal power. This also meant that for the army to abandon its subordinate situation it was necessary (and sufficient) for it to prove that the executive had violated legality. That attitude therefore reinforced the autonomous character of the political sphere that underlay the voluntary limitation of the stakes and procedures, both of which are essential for the functioning of stable democracy.

Changes in the Political System and the Army

If this network of hypotheses is sound, the vulnerability of the constitutional political order appears clear. The arrangement was not capable of resisting over a long period extremist polarization, the departure from the constitutional framework, or the increase and multiplication of the matters at stake. However, when Salvador Allende and Popular Unity came to power in 1970 the political system had already been profoundly shaken. The crisis did not begin with the entry of the left into the presidential palace. Let us say rather that this crisis revealed the situation, but it went back to 1964 and to the Christian Democratic presidency of Eduardo Frei. Allende was elected by surprise, the accidental result of a three-way election that followed the split between the Christian Democrats and the conservatives of the National party who no longer trusted it. The country did not choose socialism, since Allende with only thirty-nine thousand votes more than rightist candidate Jorge Alessandri received a lower percentage of the votes than he had in the presidential election of 1964: 36.2 percent against 38.9 percent. However, Popular Unity benefited from the break between the upper bourgeoisie and the middle classes, between the traditional ruling classes and the modern bourgeoisie that was promoted by the reformist policies of Frei.

In 1964, the Christian Democrats presented an ambitious

new program in order to counteract the rise of the left. Already in 1958 with Salvador Allende as its candidate the left had come very close to defeating the classical right, which ran Alessandri. In 1964 the Christian Democrats presented an ambitious new program to bring the country out of the economic stagnation from which it had suffered since the beginning of the 1960s. Eduardo Frei, who received a massive vote thanks to the conservatives who did not present a candidate for fear of helping the Popular Action Front (FRAP) of Allende, intended to secure the support of social sectors that had been excluded from the political game and from the life of the society, while modernizing the productive apparatus. His campaign, which was characterized by a sometimes extreme anti-Communism and was partly financed by the American CIA,^[17] proclaimed as a reply to the pro-Castroism of his adversary "a Revolution in Liberty"; this program was intended to place Chile securely on a "noncapitalist" road to development that was in conformity with the "social doctrine" of the church. Frei was going to try to reform the most archaic economic structures while taking from the left its main banners and its principal potential social supporters. Thus, the Christian Democrats tried to integrate under their guidance the marginal sectors of the urban population into social and political life through a network of "neighborhood committees" and "mothers' centers." The policy of "popular promotion," bearing the mark of Christian Democratic "communitarianism," was complemented by more radical measures in the countryside. The formation of peasant unions was encouraged, and an agrarian reform law was adopted in 1967. It aimed at ending the semiserfdom of the inquilinos, and at forming small family properties and integrating the landless peasants into cooperatives.

Promising social justice and a continual increase in wages, Frei raised the expectations of the working population. By altering the situation of the peasants the Christian Democrats unleashed forces that they could neither satisfy quickly nor control politically.^[18] The employers were upset; the landholding upper-bourgeoisie felt that it had been despoiled by an agrarian reform that did not compensate them "sufficiently" and that liberated their peones . The National party felt betrayed. In 1967 a Brazilian integralist published a book that was forbidden in

Chile entitled Frei, the Chilean Kerensky,^[19] in which the author claimed to show that Christian Democracy was opening the way to Communism. This was not far from the way that the Chilean right was thinking. While the country did not succeed in getting out of its economic morass in spite of several good years due to the high price of copper, social conflicts became more violent and the political spectrum became more radicalized, leading to a split among the Christian Democrats.

By opening a Pandora's box with the participation of those who had been excluded, Frei broke the implicit social pact that was the basis of the Chilean political model. Popular mobilization promoted by the Christian Democrats aggravated and generalized social tension without keeping it within the institutional framework in which it had traditionally been contained. The fragile equilibrium that permitted a "disjunction between the political system and the system of social inequality"^[20] was broken by the entry of new actors, the emergence of sectors that had been marginalized until then, and the entrance on the scene of social issues for which compromise was not an appropriate solution.

This was when a "new" antidemocratic ideology was developed and promoted on the right, an ideology that assigned the army a role more in consonance with the "dangers" of the hour. Its authors rejected the concept of an army subordinated to civilian power and their Portalian neocorporatism assigned it an essential place in the structure of the new state. In October 1969, when the Tacna Regiment in Santiago rebelled at the command of General Roberto Viaux in protest against the reduction of the military budget, the low level of military wages, and the disdain that the Christian Democrats in power felt, in his view, for the officers, the majority of the parties minimized the affair. The Tacnazo was presented as a sort of incipient military strike of no political importance. The unions and the majority of the parties of the left and the right supported Frei and defended constitutional legality. But the Socialist party refused to issue an appeal in favor of bourgeois institutions^[21] and made overtures to the leader of the rebellion.^[22]

The Socialists, faithful to the military antecedents of their founding as well as their maximalist orientation and favoring a

coup, no doubt knew that the activist Viaux was located at the other political extreme and especially that an important sector of the officers—whether because of corporate resentment or because of the influence of the new Right—was questioning its constitutional subordination and the tradition of military neutrality that had been respected since 1932. These subterranean developments, which were difficult to perceive through the public and "syndicalist" aspects of the Tacnazo alone, coincided with the accession to the command of the army units of a generation of officers who had been formed during the cold war and followed the antisubversive strategic reorientation inspired by the United States. The new post-Cuba orientation was particularly marked in a country that had no guerrilla movement but in which the "Communist danger" appeared to be very serious in the eyes of the Pentagon. It is true that no single counterrevolutionary ideology yet unified the leadership of the army, but the erosion of the myth of professional neutrality was a measure of the political change that had taken place in the country.^[23]

Uruguay: Welfare State and Latifundios

Uruguay is atypical in a number of ways. Before 1973 that country differed from the majority of its neighbors in the high concentration of the population in urban areas—more than half of the population lives in Montevideo—a high level of culture, and advanced social legislation. But the party system that is a key feature of national life and goes back to the country's beginnings divides the country on a quasi-hereditary basis into two parties: the Blancos and the Colorados. As in the Colombian case, those parties are genuine communities, long at war with one another, in which party identification is very strong. One is born a Blanco or a Colorado; one does not become one, and those objects of loyalty—especially the Colorado party in the city—played an essential part in the assimilation of the European immigrants from the end of the nineteenth century until the crisis of the 1930s.

The Colorado party that governed the country without in-

terruption for ninety-three years (1865–1958), created the army in its own image—civilian and Colorado. It reached the point that in 1917 the Blanco cadets were expelled from the military academy and that in 1958 when the National (Blanco) party won the elections the military were unhappy with the change of government and the new government had difficulty finding sympathetic generals.^[24] We have described one of the reasonsthat the military did not intervene: the army was not autonomous. Because it was linked to a political family, it did not consider itself above the parties with the right to act as supreme authority and guarantor of the national interests.^[25]

That army, controlled as it was in traditional ways, was located, however, within a society that was both modern and wealthy. A small buffer state between the colossi of Brazil and Argentina, Uruguay, with its two hundred thousand square kilometers, had certain remarkable advantages: a homogeneous and well-distributed population, essentially made up of European immigrants; exceptionally rich soil constituting 89 percent of the productive land; and a temperate climate. Thanks to its natural advantages the country became a major exporter of wheat and meat to Europe at the beginning of the century. The "differential rent" created by conditions that were particularly favorable to cattle raising allowed it to adopt advanced social legislation very early. The state thus redistributed a part of the substantial revenues from foreign trade to the urban salaried workers, whose number increased rapidly. In addition the Uruguayan state at its height took control of a number of areas of industrial production and services, and multiplied the number of bureaucrats and the like.

The urbanization (one might say the "Montevideo-ization") of the country and the expansion of the public sector contributed to the maintenance of traditional agrarian structures. Agricultural activity financed urban development in a way that acted in turn to reduce the social tensions in the productive sector and to preserve the agrarian status quo. The substantial bureaucratic elements also contributed to the astonishing stability that the country exhibited for nearly seventy years. In fact, the prosperity that Uruguay enjoyed before the Second World War produced a special socioeconomic system that combined large agrar-

ian property holdings with a sort of urban socialism: in a way the latifundia were the basis of the welfare state. In other words, Uruguay is a European-type society that is built on an agricultural system that is typically Latin American—one in which developed consumption patterns depend on an underdeveloped productive system. Social and political stability have been achieved at the price of a low level of efficiency in the production system and a limited capacity to adapt to economic changes.^[26]

In addition, since 1914 and especially since the 1930 Depression, Uruguay developed consumer industries aimed at an expanding internal market. These were hard hit beginning in 1955, following the boom produced by the Korean War, by the decline in demand for wool, the collapse of the market, and the inability to compensate for that lack of sales with new production for export since the area devoted to agriculture continued to decline. All of this resulted in the permanent stagnation of foreign trade and a progressive shrinkage in the national economy. The stagnation of exports, despite the relatively sustained character of the market for meat and cereals, was aggravated by the low productivity of the agropastoral sector.^[27] The lack of dynamism in the most important sector of the nation produced a recession in the whole economy so that beginning in the 1950s the growth rate of Uruguay was at the bottom of the list for the American continent.^[28]

The economic collapse was therefore not simply a cyclical recession, but rather a profound structural crisis that raised questions about the viability of the Uruguayan model in which a modern society and an archaic productive apparatus were combined to prevent change and adaptation. Confrontation between the different social sectors concerning the division of the reduced revenues henceforth replaced the permanent compromise that had characterized national life. The "pauperization" of the country produced tensions that endangered the social pact that heretofore had been respected by all. Social groups struggled more and more bitterly to obtain a larger share of a national income that was hopelessly stagnant. The galloping inflation was a manifestation of these struggles, along with the political shifts that began to take place with the 1966 elections.^[29]

Those who controlled the principal means of production—

that is, the large landholders, but also the powerful financial and export sector—were forced to question the rules of the sociopolitical game. To preserve their incomes, they began to oppose the redistributionist policies of the welfare state and the transfers that favored the salaried sectors and industry. Forgetting the importance of state paternalism and involvement in the economy for the maintenance of social peace and the status quo, the dominant groups preached austerity and the reduction of public spending. The bureaucrats, around two hundred-fifty thousand people or 10 percent of the population, were the first victims of the crisis, however; in 1967 their salary level dropped much more than that of other urban workers.^[30] The three hundred twenty-five thousand persons on state pensions—the number of which was an indication both of the aging of a population that followed northern European demographic patterns and the generosity of legislation adopted in times of prosperity—were also defenseless victims of the new situation. The dismantling of the "compromise state" began. It could not take place without violence. The return to economic liberalism demanded by the producing and property-owning sectors was bound to involve an attack on the very foundations of the Uruguayan system.

Direct control of political power was also indispensable in order to achieve that goal. This was why when Pacheco Areco assumed the presidency on the death of President Gestido new people in government who were businessmen, bankers, and large landholders replaced the "political class" that had come from the traditional parties. These were new men who were going to try to impose on the country a plan of stabilization and economic retrenchment, the principal feature of which was an authoritarian control over salary increases. Inflation was controlled, but the economic picture was close to bankruptcy. While the social cost of the economic plan did not seem to concern a government that was not looking for popularity, the resistance of the salaried population (more than 70 percent of the work force) was very vigorous. The government responded to the wave of strikes that shook the country with a military takeover in the case of the employees of the nationalized banks and a modified state of siege (las medidas prontas de seguridad ) or

emergency measures that substantially transformed the social climate and the nature of power.

In this tense if not desperate atmosphere dominated by a feeling of irreversible collapse, a clandestine extraparliamentary opposition of young people appeared. It used acts of "symbolic violence" to undermine the authority of the government and to try to provoke the collapse of the regime. The Tupamaro Movement of National Liberation (MLN) began by carrying out actions that did not involve bloodshed and were not without humor. Created because of exasperation with the bankruptcy of the Uruguayan dream and the collapse of the welfare state, these invisible "respectable guerrillas" defied the state and the ruling classes and established themselves as a derisive counter-power that "judged" corrupt politicians, producing a series of ministerial resignations.

Faced with this undeniably popular challenge, the police remained impotent and the political climate rapidly deteriorated. Fundamental liberties were suspended as part of the "state of urgency." Uruguay became "Latin Americanized" in a disturbing way. Nevertheless the opposition in the congress denounced several dozen cases of the torture of political prisoners, and general elections were held normally in November 1971 after a violent and feverish campaign. In addition to the two dominant parties that were divided into many different currents depending on temporary cleavages and often lacking in ideological or social content, the left established a "Broad Front" made up of Colorado and Blanco dissidents which received the support of the Tupamaros. The Front presented as its presidential candidate a prestigious and progressive military man, General Liber Seregni.

Contrary to all expectations, the candidate who favored continuity, a member of the faction of the Colorado party to which Pacheco Areco belonged, won the election because of the provisions of the electoral law. Juan Maria Bordaberry, a cattle raiser and former agriculture minister, favored strong methods and only wished to follow in the footsteps of his predecessor. The Broad Front, with only 18.28 percent of the votes, had frightened some, but did not win. For its leaders, this was a real defeat even though the Front's candidates had received 30 per-

cent of the votes in Montevideo. In spite of the crisis the political system held good. The two traditional parties at their lowest level of support still remained above the 80 percent mark. However, the traditional voting system had begun a process of erosion and the nervousness of the conservatives, driven by a fear of change and of violence, did not allow them to wait for peaceful solutions to the problems of the country.

The Chilean Army under Popular Unity: A Crucial Area of Political Confrontation

The defeat of the "Chilean way to socialism" is blamed by some on the timid legalism of the reformist leaders of Popular Unity who failed to "arm the people," and by others on the destabilizing intervention of the United States and the plotting of the CIA. These two views, which are not contradictory, should be discussed, even though they both reflect a mechanistic logic that is far from explaining the complex political and social machinations that took place during those dramatic three years.

Certainly the defenders of the "universal laws governing the transition to socialism" were not wrong to argue that a revolution cannot be carried out without a revolutionary army.^[31] It is rather evident to the observer that to establish socialism against the will of 60 percent or more of the population without using coercion would be an unprecedented accomplishment. However, from the beginning the Popular Unity experiment was carried out within narrow limits, and subject to highly restrictive conditions. The first condition for its survival consisted in remaining within the framework of "bourgeois" institutions and respecting the rule of existing law. "Legality is my strength," Allende is supposed to have said.^[32] It was also his weakness in the face of a hostile congress and a majority of the population that did not subscribe to his program of a transition to socialism. In these conditions the army, which was jealous of its monopoly of armed violence, was the touchstone and the guarantor of respect for institutions. How could anyone believe that the military, a significant sector of which conspired

in October 1970 to prevent Allende from assuming the presidency and did not hesitate to assassinate the commander-inchief of the army who was a strict legalist, would have benevolently permitted the distribution of arms to the workers?^[33] When the military were only waiting for something like this, who can believe that all that had to be done was to choose the method of insurrection and establish a popular army parallel to the professional army, or eliminate it? The Chilean army of 1970 bore no resemblance to the demoralized legions of Batista in Cuba in 1958. Some defenders of Popular Unity still think today, as they did in 1970, that in the flush of victory everything was possible. All you had to do was name "a captain as commander-in-chief,"^[34] purge the officer ranks, and play the national police against the other armed forces. It is true that they also claim that the majority of the officers belonged to the democratic sector and that it would have been useful to "make an effort to penetrate the noncommissioned officers and enlisted men." However, it is very probable that the least effort to encroach on the prerogatives of the armed forces or to take over their internal structures—certainly to modify constitutional legality—would have inevitably produced a military uprising that the "democratic" sectors of the high command would not have been able to stop or abort. To dissolve the congress, create militias, and to manipulate or subvert the military hierarchy are hardly ways to maintain the unity of any army that is unhappy with a government that is only protected by the fact that it has come to power legally.

Paradoxically, more astonishing than the coup d'état of September 1973 was the duration of Allende's government, which almost did not come to power at all. How did a "revolutionary" government with Communist ministers succeed in governing for nearly a thousand days in the face of an army whose war plans prepared it for the struggle against Communism and of a bourgeoisie knocking on the barracks doors with the agitated assistance of Uncle Sam? That feat was made possible precisely because of the fact that the government respected the autonomy and the institutional integrity of the armed forces that Allende made continual efforts to seduce, to bring along, to convince, and to reassure. To those who argued to the

"Comrade-president" that only "action by the masses will stop the coup d'état," Allende's answer was "How many of the masses are needed to stop a tank?"^[35] Situated on the edge of the razor—or rather the saber—the Socialist president delayed the intervention of the military by maintaining a dialogue with the army leaders on the assumption that each day gained would reinforce his legitimacy and improve the balance of forces in his favor.

The thesis of American plotting is also based on a solid foundation. The maneuvers of ITT and Henry Kissinger, and the considerable expenditures of the CIA in Chile are known through the official publications of investigating committees in the United States.^[36] The American government was behind the plot by Viaux in October 1970 to prevent Allende from taking power—which cost the life of General Schneider.^[37] In 1971 it developed a plan designed to produce "economic chaos in Chile."^[38] The strikes of the transport workers and shopkeepers which paralyzed the country in 1972 and 1973 were largely financed by the CIA.^[39] The "invisible blockade" that consisted in cutting the loans by international agencies and American banks and limiting the sale of certain sensitive goods was designed to "make the economy scream" and therefore to weaken a government that would be held responsible for penury and economic difficulties. Nevertheless, nearly five coup attempts that were more or less advanced and possessed the not always discreet support of American specialists in "dirty tricks" and covert action were thwarted by the loyalist army leaders before September 1973. And the CIA itself had recognized since 1970 that "the military will only intervene if internal conditions demand their intervention."^[40] Despite the methods put into operation the maneuvers fomented from the outside by the United States failed one after another. You do not overthrow governments with dollars, at least not in Chile. And, paradoxically, at least two of the plots supported by the CIA reinforced the Popular Unity government and even improved its relations with the army rather than destroying them.

The assassination of General Schneider by the conspirators in October 1970 convinced the congress that was supposed to ratify the election of the Popular Unity candidate to the presi-

dency—as well as the armed forces and public opinion—that only a respect for constitutional procedures would avoid a dangerous leap into the void. The fiasco of the coup by generals Roberto Viaux and Camilo Valenzuela discouraged the parliamentary intrigues aimed at ousting the minority candidate who had come in first in the presidential election. Still more, the death of the commander in chief (a martyr to military discipline) had the effect of making loyalty to the observance of the constitution into something sacred. The casket of the dead commander, with the retiring and newly elected presidents as pallbearers, even appeared as a physical expression of the alliance between a "nondeliberating" army and democratic political forces. The "Schneider Doctrine" was no doubt a powerful instrument to neutralize the coup tendencies of an important sector of the command. Similarly, the first truck owners' strike of October 1972, following several violent demonstrations by the right against the government, brought the military closer to legal power. Disorder was on the right, and legality on the left. Three military men on active duty accepted ministerial posts at the end of October in order to put an end to the bosses' strike. The right denounced the collusion and the politicization of the generals. As minister of interior, the second most important person in the government, General Prats, the successor of General Schneider, was the principal obstacle to any coup d'état, and for the right was the man to eliminate. However, the support of the military—which some have seen as the beginning of the end of the civilian order—while it gave a respite to Popular Unity, showed clearly that the capture of the army was at the center of all the confrontations. As a French journalist noted, "From now on, power is in the barrel of the guns," but this was not true in the ways that the extreme left thought.^[41]

The army therefore loyally supported Allende and guaranteed the continuation of the socialist experiment in the name of the defense of the Constitution. This was also to be the death knell of Popular Unity and the democratic regime. No one was unaware that most of the generals were not sympathetic to socialism. The leaders responsible for the political maneuvering and those, especially on the left, who understood the relation of forces and were not content to imitate the revolutions of the

past and to adopt their "impatience as a theoretical argument" (Lenin) knew that the road was narrow. The army, linked to the United States, bombarded by the propaganda of the right and importuned by the siren songs of the bourgeoisie to which it felt close in every way, had to be prevented with enormous effort from sliding into disobedience and rebellion. Who would win over the military—Popular Unity, the legal government, made up of a divided coalition and badly served by its allies on the extreme left whose provocations were giving weapons to the right, or the bourgeoisie and the United States who had other powerful means besides the tenuous thread of an eroding legality?

The United States and the Pentagon in particular know well that an in-depth effort carried out with the Chilean army is more useful than the bizarre intrigues of the secret services. Since the 1960s, because the combination of a strong Communist party and the movement in favor of Cuba within the Socialist party frightened Washington, the United States had aided the Chilean army with a generosity that was both undeniable and self-interested. In fact, Chile was one of the principal beneficiaries of American aid on the continent; indeed the second ranking after Brazil, ahead of countries that faced Castroite guerrillas such as Peru, Colombia, and Bolivia. Chile, with some sixty thousand men under arms, received in military programs from the United States $ 169 million from 1946 to 1972 (compared with $ 162 million for Argentina in the same period), $ 122 million of which was spent between 1962 and 1972.^[42] Beginning in 1965, practically all Chilean officers took training programs in American schools. From 1950 to 1970, 4,374 Chilean military men were trained in Panama or the United States (compared with 2,808 for Argentina with an equivalent level in military education).^[43] The number of those enrolled in such programs approached two thousand between 1965 and 1970, attesting to the increase in intensity of American influence under Frei. Certainly the effects of those training programs were not univocal or automatic. Prats, "the Democratic general," went through Fort Leavenworth. More important, while the United States cut provisions to the Allende government, it maintained and increased military credits. Mili-

tary aid, which had dropped to $ 800,000 in 1970, reached $ 5.7 million in 1971 and rose to $ 10.9 million in 1972, constituting the only American aid allocated to Chile in that year and one of the highest amounts of that type of aid received by that country since 1962. Furthermore, Chile under Popular Unity retained the ships lent by the United States and in 1973 participated for the first time in four years in the Unitas naval maneuvers—thus accepting, in order to please the military, something that the left opposition had always rejected under the Christian Democrats in the name of anti-imperialism.

In fact, the arms problem was very much at the heart of the concerns of the military. As General Carlos Prats recalls in his memoirs, improvement of relations with the United States was an essential condition of the government's efforts to increase the confidence of the army.^[44] The military had been led to fear a change of alliances because of the pressure of Communist ministers in the cabinet and the visit of Fidel Castro in November 1971 that had been given dramatic prominence by the attacks of the conservative press. The means that Allende had to detach the army from the bourgeoisie and American control were limited, however. While he could rely on the legalism of a part of the military hierarchy and on the strict vertical discipline in effect in the Chilean army, he could not prevent the counterguerrilla spirit and the antisubversive mentality taught by the United States in Chile itself at the Rangers school that was established in 1965 from having an impact on the lower-level officers. The links established by Freemasonry between the president and some of the ministers with the "institutional" generals, and the promilitary past history of the Socialist party which, faithful to its founder, had always voted for defense, and supported the interests of the army against the right in the congress, did not count in the face of those young officers who had been deeply influenced by anti-Communism.

Popular Unity, which controlled the government but not power, was at odds with both houses of the congress, the judiciary, and a good part of the bureaucracy; so that the party was willing to pay a price for good relations with the military. Military credits did not experience the deep cuts that were demanded by the deterioration of the economy that began in

1971. The regime gave special consideration to the army in the areas of salaries, equipment, and prestige. Allende lost no opportunity to praise the loyalty of these "different" military men, which inevitably made them a special object of attention. In a more political way, the Popular Unity president made efforts to associate the army leaders with the work of transformation by giving them positions of responsibility in the state enterprises and services, and playing on their nationalism to communicate the idea that national security also included the defense of economic sovereignty. But that approach only attracted a sector of general staff officers who knew the national situation better then the antiguerrilla captains and colonels. The "democrats," including Generals Prats, Sepulveda, Pickering, Bachelet, Poblete, and Admiral Montero, besides being strongly attached to legality, were inclined to think that the Popular Unity program would promote a process of "modernization" that deserved support in order to avoid more serious convulsions in the country.^[45] These men held key positions in the military and then in the government, and they were obeyed. They broke up coups and took steps to neutralize the golpista majority among the officers. But neither the right and the bourgeoisie nor the extreme left (including those within the government) made their task an easy one.

Popular Unity, a coalition of parties, was divided between two lines and two strategies, as well as two economic policies and two attitudes toward the state—and therefore toward the army. For some, including a majority of the Socialist party urged on by the Guevaraites of the Movement of the Revolutionary Left (MIR), which was not part of the coalition, but had a significant influence upon it, it was necessary to move quickly in the construction of socialism. These factions wished to nationalize the economy at a rapid pace, to struggle "class against class," to advance in order to consolidate the regime. For Allende, the Communists, the Radicals, and some less important parties, it was necessary to implement the programs, to define strictly the sector that was to be nationalized and the area that should remain private and it was also important to carry out the agrarian reform without fail but without departing from the provisions of the law, if they were to win over the

middle classes who had received a number of economic and social benefits.^[46] Beyond that, the defenders of this political line believed that an alliance with the Christian Democrats, whose program in 1970 was very dose to that of the UP, while limiting the revolutionary character of the experiment would permit it to be based on the support of a stable majority and allow it to be carried out legally—for them it was necessary to "consolidate in order to advance." The polarization into extremes of Chilean political forces decided otherwise. The Socialist party, the party of the president, and the MIR did not want an alliance with the national bourgeoisie through the Christian Democrats for any reason. Their strategy, even officially, was to go beyond the program of the UP.^[47] This group was thus both in power and in the leftist opposition. Also, as J. Garcés, one of Allende's advisors, emphasizes, an alliance with the Christian Democrats would have required a break with the Socialist party, which was opposed to class collaboration, and the end of Popular Unity.^[48] While the government was becoming divided, the opposition became more united. The Christian Democrats, when they failed to obtain guarantees on the limitation of the public sector and were angered by the loss of their left wing to the Popular Unity coalition,^[49] fell into the arms of the right and provided a mass base for the forces of counterrevolution.

The economic approach to the problem of gaining the support of the middle classes who were frightened by the rampant nationalizations and the excesses of "popular power" did not produce the anticipated results. This was because the problem was eminently political, even though the social dimension—that is, the maintenance of the distance that separated the middle level from the workers and the middle classes' ideological identification with the bourgeoisie, was not negligible. The counterproductive effects of the actions of "dual power" carried out by the devotees of "popular dictatorship,"^[50] who called for the destruction of the bourgeois state and thus undermined the very foundations of the socialist government also played a role. Those in the heart of the governmental coalition who announced that confrontation was inevitable and expressed their desire for civil war while creating so-called industrial self-defense zones (cordones ) that collapsed without a fight on 11 September no doubt helped

to present the middle classes on a silver platter to the right. This is without saying anything about the able propaganda of the "bourgeois" press that filled its daily newspapers with accounts of the "excesses" of the MIR (which were blamed on the government) and tried to create an image of "economic and social disorder."^[51]

During this time the right, which was more united than the left and surer of where it was going, was not inactive. The national and foreign bourgeoisie did not intend to have its property taken away without a fight. Fortified by the support of the Christian Democrats, some of whom had welcomed their inability to come to an agreement with the UP, the parties and corporate organizations of the Chilean bourgeoisie were to launch two frontal offensives, one economic, and the other political and congressional. The first program was carried out by sabotage, and the second through obstruction and provocation. Since the 1970 elections panic had spread throughout the land. It was said that Russian tanks or cossacks were about to appear on the Alameda . Investment stopped, capital fled, and sometimes the employers fled as well. Bank accounts were closed and a frenzy of indiscriminate buying and consumption ensued. The politics of rumor fed the war of nerves. In the agrarian sector, when the landowners did not provoke incidents with the governmental authorities in charge of expropriations under the 1967 law, they carried out a "scorched earth" policy. Material disappeared; cattle were driven over the border to Argentina or else they were slaughtered, rather than being given to the peasants. When the drop in the price of copper and the parallel increase in imported foodstuffs in 1971 created economic difficulties, shopkeepers and individuals promoted shortages. Hoarding and willful destruction of certain consumer goods intensified a flourishing black market and obliged the state to bureaucratize distribution and politicize rationing.^[52]

In the area of politics an intense parliamentary guerrilla war aggravated the situation and attempted to force the government to violate legality. In addition to the impeachment of a number of ministers,^[53] there was also a systematic refusal to adopt any government proposals, however trivial, thus promoting inflation and depriving the government of the financial re-

sources to carry out its reforms. Nevertheless, the right adopted laws that were applied against government supporters, such as that mandating arms control. While thanks to the intervention of the army the first truck owners strike failed to overthrow "the Marxist government," the action attested to the rightist radicalization of the petty bourgeoisie. It remained only to create a climate to bring over an army that had been manipulated unceasingly by the counterrevolutionaries who also offered it an ideology that would justify intervention. The mood became that of civil war. Extremist extraparliamentary groups combined the strikes by the employers with armed attacks and the sabotage of railroads and pipelines; in addition, they confronted their adversaries and the police in the streets, trying to provoke systematic chaos in order to persuade the army to intervene. In the area of ideology, integralist theory legitimized the coup d'état in advance while criticizing the apoliticism of the military. Its authors showed that the Allende government had violated "natural law" by sedition (dual power) and attacks on property. It no longer guaranteed the "common good"; therefore it was illegitimate. Also, since in the name of the general interest it was better to prefer the goals of the system (capitalism) to its forms (democracy), the executive could be considered as vacant: Allende was no more than a usurper.^[54]

This was the rationale for the coup d'état that was then set in motion. Since April 1972 some of the generals had been considering it as a solution to the conflict between the executive and the legislature;^[55] still, it was necessary to arouse the initiators of the movement and to break down their defenses. The attitude of the extreme left, which spoke about carrying the class struggle into the heart of the armed forces, helped to unify the military leadership, even if the incidents in the navy in Valparaiso were due to provocation by coup-oriented officers rather than to genuine infiltration by revolutionary elements in the crews. The extreme left, in its illusionary lyricism and self-aggrandizement, fell into the traps that had been set for it and proclaimed as signs of victory the violations of legality that were attributed to it, sometimes without foundation. On 22 August the majority parties in the Chamber of Deputies finally declared that the government had placed itself in an illegal situation by violating the law and

the constitution through the encouragement that it had given to "parallel power" and to legally unjustified attacks on private property. The opposition parties had majority support in the country. The legalism of the army was preserved. The coup-makers had a green light. The last obstacle was removed when General Carlos Prats, discredited by rather ignoble provocations and outvoted in the Council of Generals, resigned from the cabinet and gave up his post of commander in chief a few days later. Chile held its breath and the loyalism proclaimed by the new army commander, Augusto Pinochet, who claimed to be a democrat but refused to remove the most notorious coup-plotters, only half deceived the political class. The commander in chief did not betray them, properly speaking: he followed his troops. The Djakarta Plan was thus to go into effect on the morning of 11 September. The situation was finally ripe; the coup-makers' absurd invention of a Plan Z that was supposed to have called for the physical liquidation of the civilian and military opposition by the left was a weak a posteriori explanation, which was immediately abandoned. There would be no civil war. Fascism would pass. It was time for the White Terror.

The Longest Coup d'état and the Militarization of Uruguay

The pause for elections and the truce agreed upon at that time by the Tupamaros overshadowed the important decision taken by President Pacheco Areco in September 1971. From then on the armed forces were in charge of the repression of subversive activities. Considering the anti-Communist training of all of the armies of the continent under U.S. auspices since 1962, it could be assumed that their style of activity was going to be more vigorous than that of the various police groups, especially since the Uruguayan army is without doubt one of those most influenced by the United States in South America. Not only—since there is no military industry—does it depend on American equipment, but the number of Uruguayan military men trained by the U.S. army is much higher relatively than that of its neighbors (1,723 Uruguayan military men took training in the

United States between 1950 and 1970). The Tupamaros for their part went back into action at the beginning of 1972 and began to attack the armed forces directly. That unexpected escalation testifies to the increased confidence of the movement in its capacities for mobilization due to the electoral defeat of the left. The MLN believed that the armed struggle remained the only way for popular aspirations to be realized. At the moment that the new president was calling for a vote by the congress on repressive legislation, the Tupamaros assassinated military men and policemen accused of organizing a sort of "death squad," well aware that they would unleash a response of great intensity. They chose a policy of making matters worse, hoping thus to increase the size of their movement with all the victims of mass repression.

In these circumstances the congress hastened to vote the State of Internal War and a Law of Public Order that limited civil liberties and expanded military jurisdiction. The offensive by the forces of order turned out to be extraordinarily murderous. It cost the lives of eight members of the Communist party, which had never shown great sympathy for the "adventurist" methods of the Uruguayan "Robin Hoods." However, the Tupamaros underestimated the forces of the enemy. The intensification of repressive operations, no longer restrained by constitutional and juridical limitations, took effect. The country was divided up and searched, and the capital was put on a wartime footing. The army terrorized the "terrorists," who went on the defensive. Their leaders, their hiding places, and their arsenals fell, one after another. By September 1972, the MLN was practically dismantled. The counterguerrilla strategy, based on the pursuit of information by any means, demonstrated an impressive effectiveness. National and international moral authorities denounced the cruel treatment of political prisoners without causing concern to the military, who felt that they were carrying out their profession as they had been taught.

But the agony of the Tupamaros, rather than leading the military to leave the political scene, resulted in an increase in their claims. The increasing indiscipline of the army reduced the already precarious authority of the president more each

day; it seemed that the administration could not resist the vicissitudes and responsibilities of revolutionary war. By giving carte blanche to the "joint forces," Bordaberry took a political risk that was to be fatal for him. The Uruguayan military, convinced that they were defending the national interest, had great difficulty adjusting to democratic practices, even when these were limited to criticisms in congress. Official army communiques denounced parliamentary motions against the demands of the military as complicity with subversion.

The test of strength with the executive began in July 1972. The army revolted against the naming of a new defense minister, set its own conditions, and made its program known. The military communiques, which were distinguished mainly for their ambiguity, no doubt transmitted the existence of diverse feelings within the armed forces. In any case they called for the neutralization of the political and trade union opposition that, instead of supporting democratic institutions, had singled out Bordaberry as their principal enemy. There was a question as to whether a progressive "Peruvian-style" line existed within the armed forces of Uruguay, since in August 1972 the marine officers at the Naval Center attacked corruption and speculation as forms of subversion. In September, after having won the battle with the guerrillas, some military men, on the basis of information, it was said, from their Tupamaro captives,^[56] attacked "economic criminals." They arrested several dozen persons from financial circles and refused to release them in spite of orders from the president: among the victims of these acts of "purification" were politicians of the government majority. In addition, army communiques 4 and 7, while emphasizing security, proposed a series of structural reforms including land redistribution and worker participation in the management of factories.

In fact, the military wished to be represented in all sectors of national life. This is why their rebellion resulted in the creation of the National Security Council (COSENA) in February 1973 that was accepted by the president and was to assist him "to carry out national objectives." This council, composed of the commanders of the three branches and four ministers, had as its secretary-general the chief of the joint chiefs of staff (ESMACO). The power of the military was thus institutionalized.

Having imposed their will on the president, the military, profiting from the disarray of the opposition, took the offensive against the congress. While the left, which overestimated the existence of progressive tendencies, sought alliances with the military, the army multiplied its antidemocratic demands against the legislature. On 27 June 1973, the interminable coup d'état finally resulted in the dissolution of the two houses of congress and the establishment of an appointed Council of State that inherited their powers. The provincial councils were also dissolved. Bordaberry declared himself responsible for that coup; the military order was to have a civilian facade.^[57]

The labor unions were divided in their analysis of the orientation and role of the military. The National Workers Convention (CNT), with a majority Communist leadership, declared in March 1973 that communiques 4 and 7 corresponded in part to their program, but it called for a general strike against the coup d'état. That movement lasted two weeks and extended to practically all public and private activities. The country was paralyzed. Places of work were occupied by strikers whose combativeness surprised the government and the military. The "civilian-military" government agreed to negotiate, then signed a decree dissolving the central labor union organization that was accompanied by massive arrests of its leaders. The strike continued despite decrees ordering the firing of public sector participants. However, when the demonstrations began to taper off, the majority of the CNT decided to call a halt in the absence of political possibilities. In fact the parties of the left, especially the Communist party and the union leaders, seem to have been vainly expecting a division in the military. They hoped at least for agreement with the "progressive" officers that never materialized. Contrary to the efforts of the left, that preventive coup d'état was supported by the whole army and its unity does not seem to have been threatened at any moment. Was the "Peruvianist" tendency a myth, a smokescreen, or simply a lure to divide the opposition? Of course, there has been talk of the arrest of supposedly progressive officers, or those hostile to the coup d'état. But neither General Alvarez nor Colonel Trabal, who were considered to be the representatives of the nonexistent "Peru-

vian" wing, seems to have been distinguishable at that time from the entire general staff. The succession of events leads one to think that throughout the period disagreement within the armed forces remained very secondary, compared to factors of unity.

Just as Uruguay was distinctive in having "respectable guerrillas," it had patient and discreet military men who carried out their political actions against the democratic regime at a calculatedly slow speed. Was this a tactic to avoid a direct confrontation with all the adversely affected sectors in a society that is complex and has a long liberal tradition? Was it a necessity because of internal conflicts that had to be settled before acting because of tense relationships among the forces? Whatever it may have been, a mixed regime was put in place with the consent of President Bordaberry, who gave the military men who had carried out the coup the democratic legitimacy of elected officials. However, the Council of State, which was made up of twenty-five civilians and aided the regime in the legislative area, was charged with drawing up a proposal for constitutional reform. The country entered into a phase of "the institutionalization of the revolutionary process," as the official texts stated. This meant in practice that military men were massively involved in the state administration where they replaced or "duplicated" the civilian bureaucrats. Officers directed all the nationalized enterprises, and occupied the positions of secretary general in all the ministries and of assistant director or vice president in all the technical administrative councils. They were also to be found in the diplomatic and foreign service of Uruguay. Bordabeny, all of whose decisions were in fact supervised by the general staff, involved the military officials in his economic policy by appointing them as members of the Economic and Social Council that was established in June 1974.

The militarization of the state was accompanied by the destruction of representative organizations. The parties of the left that were opposed to the coup d'état were proscribed, their leaders arrested, and their press forbidden. More generally, freedom of the press was abolished and the publications that violated that prohibition were closed by decree. There, too, a slow pace was the rule. The Communist party, despite the fact that a

good number of its leaders had been imprisoned since 1973, was not systematically persecuted until 1975, which would tend to prove that the Communist strategy that was based on the internal contradictions within the armed forces was perhaps not without foundation. Nevertheless, there was no doubt about the anti-Marxism of the new government. It was because of the supposed control by "Marxist leaders" over the labor unions that the right to strike was suppressed in practice and the unions were placed under the control of the labor minister, who supervised all their actions.

This bastard regime that did not dare to recognize that it was a military dictatorship but rather claimed to respect the republican constitution and its traditional components, the Blanco and Colorado parties, was faced with a decision in 1976. Should it proceed with the elections that the constitution provided were to take place every five years? When President Bordaberry was asked, his reply was in the negative. In a memorandum whose contents were later revealed, he pushed the logic of "military sovereignty" to its conclusion by proposing the abolition of the party system and the establishment of an authoritarian state with the support of the armed forces. When the general staff disagreed with the president on agricultural policy (the army favored the small producers), Bordaberry was finally removed on 12 June 1976. Was this a new military trick? The president fell for being too far to the right, in effect, because the general staff accused him of violating the constitution in opposition "to the most cherished democratic traditions of the country." This was taken to mean that there would soon be a "liberalization" that the president was supposed to have opposed. In fact it was simply a matter of getting past the date of November 1976 when general elections were supposed to take place while promising not to modify the constitution in any fundamental way and to hold an election within a short time. Some observers did not hesitate to relate those constitutional feints to the assassination in Buenos Aires of two former leaders of the hard-line sectors of the traditional parties—Z. Michelini and H. Gutiérrez Ruiz. Bordaberry had lost, if not his power, at least the presidency, but his program was not abandoned by the military. The deposed president had said in 1974,

"General elections cannot take place if Marxism and the professional politicians operate again in our country."^[58]

After this new "coup d'état," the Uruguayan military still did not abandon the fiction of civilian rule. Alberto Demicheli, the eighty-year-old president of the Council of State, became provisional president, while the institutional mechanisms were established for the selection of a new president for five years. To that end the armed forces promulgated a series of Institutional Acts aimed at modifying the constitution. In a single year eight such acts were adopted. Some of these gave organizational expression to the political plans of the armed forces; others projected a new type of state based on a revised national vision that broke completely with the "Batllista" model of the welfare state.^[59] The new constitutional power was essentially vested in the military.^[60] According to the Act No. 3, the executive power was henceforth to be exercised by the president of the republic, "acting with the minister or ministers concerned, the National Security Council or the cabinet" (article 1). While the executive power was now shared by the military, the legislative power was given by the Act No. 2 to the armed forces.^[61]

In the First and Fourth Acts the military in power ratified the anticonstitutional government created by the coup d'état. The First Act declared "the incompatibility of social peace with the free play of the political parties" and suspended elections sine die . The Fourth Act proceeded to purge Uruguayan politicians with a view to future elections. Most of the potential opposition was excluded from political life for a period of fifteen years.^[62] These included the presidential and vice-presidential candidates in the last two elections; all who had held actual or substitute seats in the legislative bodies; all the candidates for these positions nominated by parties that had been declared illegal; and members of the directing bodies of all the parties. It was estimated that some fifteen thousand citizens were thus deprived of their rights.

The Seventh Act ended the job security and permanent tenure of government employees, which was considered as an "irritating situation of privilege." The executive was given the right to remove government employees because of length of

service or for political reasons. The Eighth Act abolished the autonomy of the judiciary, which was subordinated directly to the executive. The new state was thus put into place.^[63] This "pluralistic" executive was headed for five years, beginning in September 1976, by a seventy-two-year-old lawyer, Aparicio Méndez. Méndez immediately distinguished himself by making surprising statements that forced the military to limit his public declarations. In addition to antiliberal tirades borrowed from the European extreme right of the thirties, the president did not hesitate to denounce France and the Democratic party in the United States as "the allies of sedition"—which did not help to increase the credit of the regime abroad.

While the cabinet was made up of civilians with the exception of the minister of the interior, the military were everywhere. The excessive size of the military, it is true, antedated the era of military rule, but expenditure for defense more than doubled between 1968 and 1973. In 1973 the allocation for the Ministries of Interior and Defense substantially exceeded a quarter of the budget. According to some sources, the total of the forces of order reached one hundred thousand men in 1980 against twenty thousand policemen and less than twenty thousand in the military in 1970.^[64] While the struggle against the guerrilla no longer required a financial effort comparable to that of the years 1972–73, the military budget did not decline. It would soon reach 50 percent of the expenses of the state.

The fiction of the "struggle against sedition" always played, it is true, a central political role in the new regime. The omnipresent military were not content to scour the whole country and to keep the citizens under surveillance. In order to dismantle the "ideological apparatus" of subversion, the continuing terror did not spare private lives. The arrests of members of the opposition knew no limit. The critics of the regime were pursued even into Argentina and Brazil by the forces of order.^[65] Torture became a standard administrative procedure. While some people disappeared, the number of those killed by the military regime was somewhat less than in other countries. However, five thousand political prisoners, fifteen thousand citizens in conditional liberty under surveillance, and nearly sixty thousand persons pass-

ing through the prisons attest to the effective functioning of a terrorist machine that led one to wonder whether it had not become an end in itself.

That sinister tyranny had some bizarre aspects. Besides the disastrous speeches of the president, we might add the ransoms demanded for some of those arrested, the poisoned wine sent to a conservative member of the opposition, or the bills for room and board sent to political prisoners—without forgetting the authorized robbery of the households of "subversives." The expression, "an army of occupation," seems to be an accurate description of the regime, and its policies were carried out as if its goal was to keep the jails filled. The specialists in repression arrested citizens because there were empty places in the detention centers. The files of the interservice general staff (ESMACO), fed by fifty years of democracy and open opposition and officially encouraged denunciations, allowed the circle of suspects to be enlarged without limit. Every group or association was suspect by nature. And the repression did not hesitate to become retroactive; journalists were arrested for articles written in 1968! Generalized insecurity reigned in the name of national security. The garrison state had succeeded the welfare state.

In the workplace and in education vigilance was redoubled to prevent all meetings. The educational system of which Uruguay had been so proud became the private preserve of the military. (The public services functioned like military installations.) It is true that the university had been the bastion of the left and that the teachers' unions were strongly opposed to the new order. The Council on Scientific Research was headed by a colonel, as was that devoted to secondary education. The university was purged and its most prestigious centers dismantled. Paradoxically, after having been forced to sign a "profession of faith in democracy," more than half of those teaching on the university level were removed or exiled.^[66] The new educational policy was seen as in the service of "Western civilization" or of "the natural order." Priority was given in the recruitment of teachers to the wives and relatives of the military. Thus we can better understand the words of the new dean of the faculty of agronomy, "We must abolish research since it is harmful to education."

The scorched earth cultural policy even extended to publication and artistic creation. The country of José Enrique Rodó, of José Pedro Varela, and of the weekly Marcha had become a cultural desert. As the exiled Blanco leader Wilson Ferreira Aldunate said to a journalist, the suppression of liberty distorts the nature of the country and even endangers its existence, for Uruguay, "squeezed between two giants, . . . was a spiritual attitude, a complex of agreed-upon values, and a political system."^[67] But in destroying that subtle national essence, were not the military serving the interests of those who simply desired to transform their country into an economic space?

From the State of War to the Military State in Chile

The violence of the coup d'état in Chile was a surprise. The equivalent of a civil war, that counterrevolutionary movement had no resemblance to the peaceful coups that punctuate the contemporary history of other countries in the continent. This was not just a matter of the lack of political experience of the Chilean military. They did not make war because they could not do anything else and because they had been trained for that purpose. The bloody character of the military operation was related to a number of goals of the seditious general staff. The class hatred stirred up by the great fear of the propertied groups and the tales of Plan Z or of a leftist coup in the navy certainly contributed to the ferocity of the "housecleaning" of the "Communists" in the shantytowns and factories. However, it is clear that the military expected a strong civilian resistance that did not materialize. After having heard the "revolutionary" left denounce "legalism" and "formal democracy" and call for an inevitable confrontation with the bourgeois state, and having seen them parade the semblance of paramilitary organizations and boast of the invincibility of the defensive power of a united people, the rebelling generals claimed to believe that the workers were armed and decided to hit them quickly and hard. Against canons, tanks, and planes what worker self-defense would have been able to resist, even if Allende had distributed

arms to them? But in addition to that pretext there were other political and operational rationales.

The terror, before affecting civilians, struck the military themselves. This was done first of all to impress the enlisted men, but also because the armed forces, which for nearly three years had resisted their activist elements, included a minority of loyalist leaders who refused to follow. These were removed from any position where they might adversely affect the purposes of the leaders of the coup and with all the more brutality because dividing the army was the basis of the plan developed by Allende to prevent the coup.^[68] Only military unity could guarantee the success of the rebellious generals. There was no place for those who were lukewarm. After intimidating maneuvers against the legalist noncommissioned officers and sailors before 11 September, the military opposition was neutralized. Many officers were arrested—the director general and five of the generals of the carabineros, the most civilian-oriented branch with the broadest popular base, as well as three army generals, two admirals, and about fifty junior officers. General Alfredo Bachelet was imprisoned on 11 September and died there, probably as result of bad treatment. The officer corps was thus brought into line. Doubtful elements were eliminated. According to some witnesses the Buín Regiment in Santiago refused to comply. The noncommissioned officers' school of the carabineros revolted against the coup. The fighting lasted three days, and was ended with the use of air power. When foreign radios announced the false news that General Prats had gone to Temuco at the head of legalist units, sporadic uprisings took place again in some regiments.^[69] There was talk of two thousand dead among the military and national police. When the junta admitted that there were two hundred deaths among the military,^[70] one might conclude that not all were victims of a quickly suppressed popular resistance. It was precisely to prevent a comeback by Popular Unity that the army hit hard and set up the system of terror. The military had a purpose. With the president dead the makers of the coup intended to neutralize the leaders of the worker parties in order to demobilize the dangerous classes for a lasting period.

Over the long term the intimidating maneuvers, the dead

stacked up in the morgue, the machine-gunned bodies left to float in the Mapocho River, the public imprisonment of suspects in the National Stadium, the hostage policy, and the raids and public executions produced a sense of something inevitable and irreversible. The military intended in that way to make any compromise impossible. The hour of the Christian Democrats had passed; the junta had not worked to bring back Frei, even though he had approved of the uprising. The bloodshed had destroyed the possibility of a restoration of the civilian right. The numerous members of the opposition who had waited for the elimination of the "Marxist" government to return to the "golden age" were wrong. The 11 September coup was a genuine break with the past sealed with the blood of the victims. To save the country from "the Marxist cancer" and to "protect democracy," the army irrevocably destroyed the "compromise state" and proclaimed a state of siege that gave them a special tutelary role. The generalized repression and the continuing state terror proved this was not a single reaction to the preceding regime and a "technical" response to the impasse in the relations of the executive and the congress, as some thought. The control by the military of the state was complete even if the organs that had not "failed" in the face of the "abuses" by Popular Unity remained formally in their previous positions. These would include the judiciary, the Contraloria General de la Republica,^[71] and the constitution of 1925, which had been violated by the generals but was not formally questioned until the referendum of September 1980.

The junta composed of the commanders of the three branches and the national police gave themselves all the other powers, including that of rewriting the constitution. The definition that the military gave of their role did not set limits. Decree-Law 1 of the junta specified: "The public force which according to the constitution [sic] is made up of the army, the navy, the air force, and the national police is the organization that the state has created to safeguard and defend its physical and moral integrity and its historical and cultural identity." Henceforth, the army was no longer a branch of the administration; the state was an extension of the army. Furthermore, the barracks regime that took power established strict order.

The savage repression—roundups in the Santiago stadium and summary executions—gradually became institutionalized. The cleanup of the "red leprosy" was supposed to have resulted in thirty thousand to fifty thousand executions in the first year, according to the estimates, and ninety thousand Chileans (in a population of some nine million inhabitants) were said to have been arrested. Beginning in 1974, the DINA, a secret police force directly subject to the orders of the executive, centralized the operations that until that point had been left to the efforts of the different branches and unit chiefs. That Dirección Nacional de Inteligencia was rebaptized the National Information Center (CNI) in August 1977, following the assassination in Washington of the former Popular Unity minister, Orlando Letelier, by DINA agents. But the methods remained the same, although relegation and deportation tended to replace "disappearances" beginning in 1978. The change in the name of the DINA and a very limited amnesty law imposed by international, especially American, pressure did not change the political climate or the nature of the regime. On the contrary, at the same time in 1977 all the political parties that had escaped the prohibition affecting the political forces of the left were dissolved. That measure was intended especially to muzzle the Christian Democrats who were suspected of desiring to put some distance between themselves and the regime. Euphemisms such as "state of urgency" instead of "state of siege," "restriction of nightly movement" for "curfew," and "transfer" for "deportation" were intended to improve—especially abroad—the very bad image of a regime that had been condemned internationally.^[72]

The counterrevolutionary regime that was created to protect "democracy," even "human rights," against "Marxist totalitarianism" started from the principle that the country was at war. "Foreign aggression" had been defeated in September 1973, but "latent subversion" and "foreign ideologies" were still a threat. "Western Christian civilization" must have the institutional means to defend itself. This is why the military were keeping power in Chile where minds had been profoundly perverted by collectivism. From 1973, with the exception of the economic ministries, all the cabinet posts were in the hands of the superior officers of the four branches. The prefects and

regional governors, as well as the majority of the mayors, were military men. Police control of ideas and of intellectual activity was carried out by the armed forces. The purge of the professors and the elimination of critical disciplines in the universities were the responsibilities of military rectors and administrators. Even history and geography were screened by the new regime: geopolitics, in which General Pinochet was an "expert,"^[73] became a separate discipline, and Chilean history ended at the beginning of the twentieth century.

The criminalization of all social criticism enabled someone to say that Chile had become "a house of correction for political delinquents." This authoritarian state with overtones of an antidemocratic crusade nevertheless lacked the ideological language to develop a consensus or to mobilize the citizens. Of course, a "doctrine of national security" had been developed after the coup d'état, and a National Security Academy was created for the officers in 1974 where civilian professors, drawn from the right wing of the Christian Democrats, from the National party, and from the quasi-fascist Patria y Libertad gave courses. However, this "doctrine" had no purpose other than to unify the military ranks, to justify a posteriori in strategic terms the political intervention of the army while avoiding any serious thought in the barracks. In order to carry out the redemption it had announced, the junta had no need to convince and arouse the citizenry. On the contrary, it aimed at depoliticizing and separating consumers and producers.

In spite of the criticisms of representative institutions formulated by its leaders, the military order had essentially one economic and social project. The reorganization of society and the restoration of capitalism was to permit the establishment of a democracy that was protected from danger and "capable of confronting the adversary who has destroyed the sovereignty of the state."^[74] The anti-Marxist obsession of the military thus was joined to the ideological concerns of their civilian allies. Politics was to be eliminated in order to liberate the economy. National security coincided with the laws of capitalism and the new international division of labor. True freedom is freedom to invest. That is the way to understand the surprising declaration of General Pinochet in September 1977 that "the suspension of

certain human rights in Chile protects and in fact guarantees human rights."^[75] Equally clear in that respect was Arturo Fontaine, the editorialist of El Mercurio, when he wrote,

Liberty and the rights of man exist in inverse ratio to the presence of the state in social life. The greater the statism in a society, the less there is effective liberty, even if the extent of the exercise of civil rights is considerable. . . . Statism injures the essential rights of the human person, especially his real liberty. More than the power to express one's choice through elections, liberty consists in the fact that one has a sure and inviolable margin to carry out one's life and work and in general to take initiatives without external interference.^[76]

That classic praise for the policy of letting the fox free in the chicken coop is at the base of the project of transformation of the Chilean generals.

Capitalist Revolution and the "New Authoritarianism"

The Chilean counterrevolution in fact also had a program. The military, surprised by their own audacity and desiring to legitimate the intensity of the violence that they had employed, were not satisfied with the restoration of the capitalism that had been attacked by the participants in the socialist festival. The adoption and implementation of the superliberal approach of the school of Milton Friedman that promoted the deification of the market was in obedience to a logic that was largely military. The conspiracy theory that the Chilean army was conditioned by the United States to defend economic liberalism and multinational capitalism is not convincing. In fact the United States did not demand that much in 1973, but the rebelling generals adopted the opposite view from their adversary in economics in order to justify their power and to respond to the expectations of their civilian allies. Just as they had taken strong action in the area of political repression, they chose a shock treatment in that of economics. The Chicago boys' model, while it reestablished the "natural" laws violated by the "totalitarians," imposed re-

demptive mortification on the country in proportion to its past enjoyment. The high social cost of the economic program had both political and moral arguments in its favor. In addition, the general market orientation and the removal of numerous institutions and activities from state control would privatize social demands and thus signal the end of collective action and perhaps of politics. That capitalist revolution, that destructuring of the social tissue, was to assure, in General Pinochet's words, "a future without disturbance or fear." The god of the market was thus charged with the responsibility of permanently expelling the demons of collectivism. A savage liberalism would guarantee politically the freedom to invest. Military surgery would assure the continuation of the system without the necessity of resorting to force.

The freeing of market forces involved several components, some of them strictly economic. However, the removal from state control of activities that could be carried out by the private sector and the abolition of controls, subsidies, and state protection of the economy were the fundamental elements of the model. Not only were the enterprises that had become social property under Allende returned to the private sector (except for the nationalized copper mines) and the free market in agricultural land reestablished through an agrarian counterreform, but traditional areas of the state were privatized in order, it was said officially, to reduce public expenditures. The correctness and freedom of prices became a dogma. Customs barriers that had protected national industry were lowered. Duties went from 100 percent to 10 percent in order to introduce foreign competition and allow a restructuring of industry.^[77] Henceforth foreign capital was to have the same advantages as domestic capital. Competition was reestablished by law in the labor market (thanks to the control of the unions, wage negotiations on the factory level, and laws permitting lockouts). Thus the invisible hand of the market could restore harmony in an economic open space in the best of all capitalist worlds.

According to the military junta, these crude orthodox measures led to a veritable "economic miracle." In fact, inflation, which had passed an annual rate of 500 percent in 1973, was reduced to 40 percent in 1978. International reserves, in con-

stant hemorrhage since 1978, started to grow again beginning in 1978. The economic recovery that began in 1976 was undeniable. From 1976 to 1980 the Chilean economy expanded at rates of more than 7 percent per year.^[78] Exports increased at a relatively sustained rate from 1974. Also, the utilization of Chile's comparative advantage as well as new uses for its raw materials allowed an increased diversification and a rise in nontraditional exports from 7. 9 percent of the total in 1970 to 32 percent in 1979.^[79]

The other side of the coin was less impressive. For those responsible for the Chilean economy, it was a matter of the "inevitable social cost of leading the country out of chaos." The average wage level dropped 30 percent between 1974 and 1980. Unemployment was twice that of 1970 and in 1975 and 1978 was around 13 percent to 15 percent of the population, without including the Minimum Employment Program that offered low-paid temporary work for the unemployed.^[80] The contraction of the social expenditures of the state and of efforts at national solidarity produced frightening consequences. Malnutrition worsened in the cities and the countryside,^[81] while the importation of luxury food and drink rose in a spectacular fashion; the importation of confectionery articles by 16 percent and that of whiskey by 116 percent.^[82] The health level of the population dropped parallel to the decline in public expenditure; typhoid and veneral diseases made terrifying inroads again, testifying to the new misery.^[83]

Besides the social cost to which neither the technocrats nor the masters of Santiago were very sensitive, there were weaknesses in the economic model. The trade balance was negative almost continuously following 1973. The influx of finance capital raised the burden of the external debt, the service of which represented over half of export receipts, but investment did not increase. The investment coefficient under the military (around 10 percent) was below the historical average of 16 percent. Some claimed that the country was becoming decapitalized.^[84] Despite the "generous and nearly irresistible character of the guarantees offered to foreign capital" by the Chilean authorities, according to the Business International Corporation^[85] Chile received less direct foreign investment per year between 1974 and 1979 than it

had ten years earlier. Barely a fifth of approved investment has actually been carried out up to now, and ninety percent of it is taking place in the mining sector. We are far from confirming the relationship argued by certain authors between the "bureaucratic authoritarian" state and the "deepening" of industrialization. Not only was Chile importing fewer capital goods than consumer goods, but the country was deindustrializing in conformity with the theory of comparative advantage. The participation of industry in the national product went from 25 percent in 1972 to 21 percent in 1977, or a return to the situation of 1953.^[86] The military government had emphasized the development of natural resources that accounted for much of the boom in nontraditional exports. The forests in the south were systematically cut and wood was becoming the new "wages of the country."^[87] Chile was on the road to underdevelopment although not for everyone, of course. "Extreme wealth" was associated with certain great names involved with powerful financial groups (Cruzat-Larrain and Vial).^[88] Concentration of wealth seemed to be a part of economic and social exclusion, just as the repression supported political exclusion. The program of economic liberalism combined well with the program of protected democracy. The weakening of industry reduced the size of the proletariat just as privatization of the state sector contracted the number of state employees: two categories in which the left opposition recruited its supporters. The "five or seven modernizations" preached by the "great helmsman," Pinochet, were to permit the privatization of health, education, and the retirement system. Also, the reformers saw two benefits from mercantilizing the public services: the retreat of the state produced the depoliticization of "sensitive" activities and the capitalization of social security encouraged support of the market system, thus increasing individualism. A change in mental attitude was the objective of that radical capitalist revolution.^[89]

The same logic does not seem to have been foreign to the pseudocivilian regime in Uruguay, the economy of which, even more than that of Chile, seemed to be on the way to underdevelopment. In addition Uruguay seems to be one of the few countries in the world whose population is declining in peacetime. With a very low birthrate (1.3 percent), it lost 10 percent of its

population between 1963 and 1975. Two hundred thousand Uruguayans emigrated to Argentina and others went elsewhere, even as far as Europe. The country was not only emptied of its intellectual elites but because of a drain that was without precedent, it lost a significant part of its working population. The contraction and aging of its labor force did not favor economic dynamism.

Nevertheless, the brain drain did not disturb those in power. Vegh Villegas, the economic minister, then member of the Council of State and author of the new Uruguayan economic model, is supposed to have said that the exodus would benefit the country because the funds sent back by the exiles would increase the national income.^[90] In fact, the neoliberal policy practiced by the convinced monetarists put all its emphasis on foreign trade and ignored the intellectual health of the country. Inspired by the Chicago school, the Friedmanite policy of Vegh Villegas and his supporters involved, in addition to the drastic reduction in state expenditures and the opening of the borders, the concentration of wealth in the high-income sectors.^[91] This program was intended to promote savings, squeeze out "inefficient industries" or those "with too high costs," and support specialization in the industries in which the country could be competitive internationally.^[92] The social consequences of this kind of policy can be seen in some figures. According to the Central Bank, the index of real salaries dropped from 100 in 1968 to 69 in June 1977. Unemployment in Montevideo went from seven percent in 1972 to 13 percent in 1977. The open economic model of financial stabilization through reduced internal consumption hit in full force the nonexpert industries, which only had access to expensive credit. The cattle raisers were also affected and they complained bitterly of the fiscal pressure; their production continued to decline.

The major beneficiaries were the financial export sectors. Because of the inflation and a policy of clearly positive interest rates, the profit rate of the financial lenders was high. The export industries (meat, leather and fur, textiles, shoes) received fiscal and banking assistance. These "export premiums," which were a heavy burden on the state budget, seem to have allowed a certain increase in nontraditional exports in 1974–75.

However, throughout the period Uruguay, no doubt because of the attraction of financial speculation as well as political uncertainty, remained (along with Haiti and Guatemala) below average in investment. This seemed to augur badly for the success of the new model. Despite the profound dismantling of the political and social system at the price that we have discussed, Uruguay did not become a South American Hong Kong, as some unrepentant "monetarists" desired. In spite of the new international division of production, foreign investors in Latin America were looking for expanding markets. Wages in Uruguay were not low enough to attract assembly industries which were too far from the United States to compete in that area with the maquiladoras on the Mexican border. But in relying more on foreign demand the new economic model increased the dependence of the country. Thus the Argentine crisis in 1976 produced a visible contraction of Uruguayan industrial exports. The Uruguayan miracle never took place. Crime does not always pay.

Did Someone Say Fascism?

How can we define these authoritarian regimes that emerged within stable democracies, were established by violence, and dedicated themselves to reestablishing the supremacy of the market? Precedents help by allowing us to focus on what is likely to occur, at the same time that they influence the alliances that will bring it about. The question is not only one of terminology, nor is it related to the gratuitous temptation to produce typologies. Certainly the polemic on the subject that became fashionable in the intellectual circles of the Latin American left was partly a matter of the fetishism of words, but it does not stop there. At the beginning the Chilean Communist party defined the Pinochet regime as fascist. The whole culture of the party of Luis Corvalán led it to describe its adversary in this way. The classic definition by the 7th Congress of the Comintern seemed to fit the Chilean dictatorship, like a glove except for the absence of imperialism. It was only necessary to adapt the Congress' tactical formula of an "open terrorist dictatorship

of the most reactionary, chauvinistic, and imperialist elements of finance capital" to a dependent country; then one knew what its character was and as in 1935 very broad alliances could be developed.

In addition, was not Pinochet's government, like the classic European experiences, a counterrevolutionary regime born out of the defeat of the working class because of the mobilization of the frightened middle classes? Did not that authoritarianism have an ideology, the doctrine of national security?^[93] Furthermore did not such dictatorships always appear in late capitalist societies in which, as in Germany and Italy, the bourgeoisie had shown itself to be weak and incapable of taking over the direction of social development? All that, however, is hardly true for Chile and not true at all for Uruguay, where the slow-motion coup d'état was preventive in character. To utilize once more the classic distinction, these regimes are "executioner states" (bourreaucraties ) that are authoritarian rather than totalitarian and lack an ideology aimed at regimenting the citizenry. The doctrine of national security only appeared for military usage, at least in Chile, after the coup d'état. The mobilization of the middle class stopped with the arrival of Pinochet to power and he never established a party. These regimes, without a single party or mobilizing apparatus, did not have a mass base and did not wish to have one. They did not mobilize the citizens, they depoliticized them; they did not indoctrinate the workers; they urged them to return to their private lives. Far from making them march together in step (zusammenmarchieren ), they isolated them. Every dictatorship, however ferocious, and every counterrevolutionary regime, is not ipso facto fascist. In addition, there is—at least in the fascism of Hitler or Mussolini—an anticapitalist rhetoric that is lacking in the hymns of praise of the market in South America. Fascism is the "popular disguise of counterrevolution" or, to use the words of Bertolt Brecht, "it pretends to protect the proletariat in the same way that the pimp protects the prostitute." There is none of that here. The violence is undisguised. The military do not engage in tricks.

"Dependent fascism," therefore is not fascism. As to the claim that it is an "overseas fascism" exported by the United States to reduce Chile and Uruguay by force to the status of

colonies,^[94] the formulation is appealing but a bit brief. In order to prove this it would be necessary to demonstrate that the armies, the instruments of that domination, are strictly mercenaries in the service of a foreign state—in short, that they are nationals in name only. The diatribe departs from reality. In both cases the United States favored a "clean" solution involving "restricted democracy" and those dictatorships showed under Carter that they could ignore the American administration if they needed to do so.

In fact even in similar circumstances of social conflict different societies develop dissimilar counterrevolutionary dictatorships. Even if "the circumstances were ripe," fascism did not develop outside the context of Europe between the wars. Furthermore, the resemblances between our two fascisms are limited since the societies of Chile and Uruguay differ. In Chile the military dictatorship that appeared in a society that was "highly mobilized, polarized, and politicized"^[95] evolved toward a system of personal power ratified by plebiscites that assured the preeminence of General Pinochet. A longing for order and some degree of economic success gave the regime an evident legitimacy in certain sectors. In Uruguay, where the working class was not defeated or the traditional parties dismantled, the process of militarization was carried out almost without a break. Faceless and divided generals called a referendum in November 1980 to legitimize and institutionalize their power, but they were defeated. From then on the regime drifted without a leader, without economic success, and disunited, awaiting either the imposition of a military caudillo or the final collapse.

In fact the goal of these military states is to eliminate politics, not to found a new political order. These officer-run republics enjoy a certain autonomy in their relations with the United States, as they do with the bourgeoisies who benefit from their installation in power. The spontaneous statism of these officers of state armies only accidentally coincides with the neoliberal economic policies that they support. Thus the Uruguayan officers, who are bureaucrats in uniform—especially in the ranks of the junior officers who were far removed from the lucrative businesses in which the upper grades participated^[96] —were not all convinced of the necessity of privatizing the public enter-

prise or of "thinning out" the state. As proof, the right given to the state to remove public employees was not applied with the rigor that the Chicago school economists would have desired. A secondary contradiction, one might say. But how do you explain, then, that in Chile the copper mines that were nationalized in 1971 were not given back to the American companies? The answer is that the military were opposed to the seeming denationalization of a strategic resource of the country.

This is why, without doubt, the power of the state remained decisive in economic policy and, despite the privatization of the enterprises expropriated by Popular Unity, public expenditure represented around 30 percent of GNP in contrast to 22. 5 percent in I960.^[97] Rather than define the nature of these regimes, we must speak of the function that the military assume. In the face of the crises that we have discussed, they represent a hegemony by substitution—a corset that replaces the flesh and blood of a coherent ruling class. The military prosthesis appears as a replacement for the living reality of an organized and effective consensus. A "technical" or pseudostate replaces the state based on the relation of social forces. This does not mean that the army is above classes or that it is the instrument of the bourgeoisie, but that it can act in both ways, not alternatively but simultaneously.

9—
The Exception to the Rule:
Praetorian Republics and Military Parties

O ur discussion of a militarism that brutally breaks down an old, deeply rooted constitutional order should not conceal from us, however, the continuity of military power in other nations of the continent. Stable domination of the state by the military is more characteristic of Latin American militarism than are isolated devastating coups d'état. The lasting military hegemony that most often goes back to the thirties has frequently made "the state of exception"—involving constitutional provisions that have never been abolished—into the rule in political life. Extended over a half-century, that military tutelage has practically become institutionalized and the "military factor" has become a legitimate partner in public life while at the same time the state and the army have become transformed in different ways as a result of that permanent fact of life. ^[*] These praetorian republics possess procedures and political mechanisms that are not written down in any constitutional text. The armies that have regularized their participation in this way constitute genuine political forces whose functioning is affected by their nature and manifest purpose. This is the special characteristic of these hybrid institutions.

The chronic instability of Bolivia for half a century does not always guarantee the corporate tutelage by the armed forces of the political system. Factionalism, indeed, military anarchy

[*] This was written before the redemocratization of most of South America in the 1980s. For the author's later views, see the epilogue to this volume. (Translator's note)

and confrontation of caudillos in uniform, does not promote that process of hegemony. However, for institutionalization to be effective it is not necessary to borrow, as in El Salvador since 1948, the canonical model of a "party of colonels" that dominates the political game and legitimates the corporate ambitions of the military. The officers need not even exercise power directly, as in Brazil before 1964. They can also hand the government back to the civilians, as has happened several times in Argentina since 1930.

The Institutionalization of Military Power: Argentina—Military Tutelage and the Permanent Coup d'État

The presence of military actors is one of the recognized permanent features of Argentine political life. The savage implantation of military power in March 1976 is no more an accidental occurrence or temporary distortion than the more benign dictatorships that preceded it in 1943, 1955, 1962, or 1966. Since 1930 in this most European of the Latin American states, military hegemony has adopted a great variety of forms, including civilian legal governments. From 1930 to 1973 no president elected in a normal succession completed his constitutional term. The propensity of the military to install themselves in the Casa Rosada, the executive residence, deserves to be emphasized; of the sixteen presidents of Argentina in this period, eleven were military men. More notable still is the fact that only two elected presidents remained in power until the end of their legal terms; they were both generals and probably would never have become president except that a well-timed coup d'état gave them the necessary political resources and the support of the army to accede to the highest position in government.

This is how General Juan B. Justo was elected president by a conservative coalition in February 1932 after the coup d'état of 6 September 1930. This coup, in which Justo participated, had removed the Radical president, Hipólito Yrigoyen, and ended the broadened political participation that had been operative since 1916. Similarly General Perón, regularly elected president

in February 1946 with the support of the labor unions, was already the strong man of the military regime that came to power in the "revolution" of 4 June 1943. The mixed character of those two regimes involved in the case of General Justo the recourse to a limited democracy, the first use of a procedure that became standard in Argentina during the military era. Justo was elected in 1932 because of a ban on the majority party, the Radical Union Party of President Yrigoyen, who had been overthrown. That ostracism was joined to an electoral fraud that some people at the time called "patriotic" because it permitted "reason," personified by the conservative elites that had been restored in 1930, to remain in power, thus keeping the conduct of affairs in a time of crisis from the "inexpert hands" of the Radical "plebeians."

While the Radicals were victims of proscriptions or of fraud from 1930 to 1943, Peronism, which had a majority in 1946, was also proscribed, beginning with the "liberating" coup d'état of 1955. Until 1973 the central problem of political life was the insoluble one of politically integrating the voters and masses of Peronism without endangering the system. A minority-based democracy resulted in unstable and improperly elected governments. Also, the successive coups d'état (1962 and 1966) always had among their causes the desire of the military to keep the Justicialist party "populace" from gaining power.

The proscription of those who would be the winners under a system of universal suffrage could also be associated with a "neutrality" on the part of the military that was biased in favor of those who appeared likely to lose. The de facto government supported a civilian candidate who defended its interests. However, after 1955 the disenfranchised Peronist voters kept undermining the carefully organized and executed plans of the military. In 1958, after three years of an anti-Peronist military regime, the opposition candidate was elected; this thanks to the votes of the supporters of General Perón, who, after being expelled from the country in 1955, wished to demonstrate his strength. The president elected in this way, Arturo Frondizi, was condemned from the start by an army with economically ultrafree enterprise tendencies that was determined to "dePeronize" the country.

In 1963 after the overthrow of President Frondizi as a result of a series of maneuvers punctuated by military confrontations, the army—now dominated by a desarrollista wing that was opposed to economic liberalism (los azules )—ended up allowing the candidate linked to the defeated military faction to win the elections. President Illía, who was close to the officers who overthrew Frondizi, was himself overthrown in June 1966 by "industrialist" military men who supported the economic policy that followed his predecessor.

Thus minority presidents came to power under the strict vigilance of an army that was itself divided into tendencies that had obvious civilian affinities. The dichotomy between the predominant orientation of the army and that of the civilian government produced permanent instability. The army did not intervene as a last resort or in exceptional circumstances, but as "the military party" to force the adoption of a policy that public opinion did not want. Strictly military mechanisms such as the search for compromises that would maintain institutional unity might come into operation either to moderate or aggravate, as in 1963, that destabilizing pattern. The civilian government could try to manipulate that military guidance but it was condemned from birth to be overthrown, or, in the interim, to remain impotent.

The process was not fundamentally different between 1973 and 1976 under the various Peronist governments before the March 1976 coup. The same mechanisms enabled the military, driven from power by an electoral landslide on 25 April 1973 in a situation of almost universal condemnation, to make the people forget three years later the authoritarian stagnation and unpopularity of seven years of "the government of the armed forces" (1966–73). Thus, it was possible to take power again by violence in a situation in which the public was stunned but relieved.

The return of the Peronists and of Perón himself to power in 1973 after the defeat of the "Argentine revolution" headed by General Juan Carlos Onganía seemed to mark the end of an historical cycle. When he returned from his long exile in Spain Perón offered to avoid the Argentinazo, a "coup by Argentines," which the rising revolutionary violence had led the disunited

military to fear. The proscriptions ended. The army, after having experienced a political rout, returned to the barracks. In fact, however, despite their apparent debacle, the armed forces did not leave the political scene. One military sector intended to participate in the "Justicialist Revolution" after sanctioning Perón's removal of the transitional Peronist president, Hector Campora, whom he had had elected. At the death of the leader in July 1974 his wife and heir, who had become president, was compelled to obtain military support. The high command now played a different game, that of neutral last recourse. The patience and inaction of the general staff again legitimated the intervention of the army and justified the ferocious repression that the new regime established in March 1976.^[1]

As we have seen, the relations of the civilians and the military were based on attitudes and expectations that are profoundly different from those that prevail in stable pluralist representative systems. First of all, contrary to the view of an ethnocentric liberalism, in the Argentine political system there are not two separate spheres lined up like two camps prepared for battle—the civilian on one side and the military on the other. This is for the simple reason that the intervention of the military is, if not legitimate, at least legitimated by large sectors of public opinion. Far from producing a sacred union of the political class or of the social forces organized to defend democratic institutions, every military uprising immediately secures the support—whether public or not—of the opposition to those in power. But the appeal to the military is not only a means of political revenge at the disposal of minority sectors. Militarism is present in nearly every party. In spite of their pronounced conservative tendency and traditional anti-Communism the armed forces do not appear in the discourse of the political class (even after 1976) as members, by definition or by nature, of a single defined ideological or social sector. Not only the Peronists, whether of the right or the left, reach out to the military, but even the orthodox Communist party and almost all the sectors of the nonviolent extreme left long for an alliance with "patriotic and progressive officers," or an improbable "Nasserist" revolution.^[2]

Thus army intervention was never rejected by a bloc as a

danger to the free development of political life or simply as the "instrument of the ruling classes." Rather, the military were perceived as difficult—even unpredictable—partners in a complex and sometimes Byzantine game in which nothing could take place against them or without them. If antimilitarism is nonexistent on the level of representative party institutions—it was different among the ordinary citizens, especially after 1976—it was not only the civilians who knocked on the barracks doors to resolve their own conflicts; the officers themselves also sought civilian support in the internal struggles of "the military party."

Thus the opposition cultivated military action to increase their weight or even to overthrow the authorities in power, and successive governments tried to obtain from the armed forces a legitimacy that often seemed decisive. The military on their part forged alliances with the parties (or the labor unions) at times to satisfy personal ambitions, but most frequently to reinforce one tendency or group against its institutional adversaries. It was understandable that in a situation of interdependence that had produced a militarization of political life and an accepted politicization of military institutions a return to a model of liberal constitutionalism seemed unlikely. What was more difficult to understand with reference to these standardized and legitimized procedures was the unusual level of violence of the coup d'état of March 1976 that was more like a counterrevolutionary break, plunging the country into one of the darkest and most uncertain periods in its history.

The junta that deposed and arrested Isabel Perón on 24 March 1976 cited the requirements of the struggle against terrorism and the guerrilla movements, one of which claimed to be Peronist.^[3] In fact the vacuum of power, the decay of official Peronism, and the economic chaos formed a pattern of political violence that could not leave the army indifferent. But the conjunction of the two threats explains the initiation of the "machine for killing" that continued its antiterrorist activities even after the guerrillas had been militarily annihilated. With the support of the government elected in 1973, the revolutionary left of the Peronist youth had infiltrated the workings of the state, from which, the military argued, they had to be

extirpated. Finally, the mobilization of a working class that was highly combative and had gone beyond the bureaucratized and often corrupt official unions seemed to be a serious danger for the established order. This is why the war against the guerrillas unleashed repression against a social class (the workers) and an age group (the young) that might include "subversive delinquents." However, the astonishing element was not the counterrevolutionary antiterrorist aspect of the new version of Argentine militarism. What was especially striking was that the nonmilitary political actors behaved in their traditional way, that is, almost disregarding the demented murderousness of the repressive apparatus. Even with blood on its hands, the military party remained a legitimate partner.

The Brazilian Case: "Moderating Power" and "Guided Democracy"

When the armed forces in Brazil took over the government on a lasting basis in 1964 after deposing the constitutional president João Goulart, the case was different from Argentina because the military intervention was an unusual action that had never occurred since the overthrow of the empire in 1889. Nevertheless, the Brazilian army had been present at all the turning points in the history of the nation and a determining force in periods of crisis. The old army of Deodoro da Fonseca and Floriano Peixotto established the republic in 1889 before handing it over to civilians. In 1930 the army also helped to end the oligarchic republic. Likewise, in 1937 it permitted the establishment by coup of the centralizing dictatorship of the Estado Novo of Getulio Vargas. Also, the army that had supported that authoritarian experiment deposed Vargas in 1945 and established a democratic system. That nonauthoritarian period appears atypical and brief to many authors, "an experiment in democracy," to use the subtitle of the work of Skidmore,^[4] that ended with the April Revolution of 1964.

The radically new institutional character of the action of the Brazilian military in 1964 was accompanied by more traditional elements in the political and economic content of the apparent

rupture. In fact if we consider the purpose of the six military interventions that have taken place in Brazil since 1930 without an assumption of power, we note that the armed forces intervened four times against pluralistic democracy (in 1937, 1954, 1961, and 1964) and only twice to guarantee constitutional legality (1945 and 1955). In its program of economic development the 1964 coup was also not unique:^[5] two previous interventions could also be considered to be economically liberal and antinationalist (1954 and 1961), to the point that authors have been able to describe those interventions that did not involve taking power as trial coups against the existing government.^[6]

This series of pressures and regulating coup-like interventions in alternating directions seems to support the thesis of a "moderating power" that the army is supposed to have inherited from the emperor and exercised until 1964. This role, which is difficult to define legally, consists in avoiding crises, reestablishing political equilibrium, and "correcting" the legal authorities and national representatives when they act in opposition to the real relations of force and de facto authorities.^[7] It is a "power that is not active, not creative, that preserves and reestablishes";^[8] it maintains "order," and guarantees "progress" in accordance with the national motto.

In fact to reduce the action of the military to that model would be to credit the armed forces with a political coherence and a unity of views that is exactly what they lack. It has often been observed that the Brazilian armed forces do not intervene in politics because they are more united and more efficient, and better able at the same time to maintain the continuity of national policy than the civilian politicians.^[9] The opposite seems to be true. If it is true that since 1930 the military, and in particular the army, have constituted a power above the government against which one cannot govern, the armed forces, which are profoundly politicized or at least "ideologized," were divided between 1930 and 1964 into two grand tendencies whose public confrontations punctuated political life. Majorities, or rather changing dominant groups, now favorable to a populist national line of Vargas and his heirs, now close to the conservative economic liberals, fixed the limits and guarantees of governmental autonomy. Not only did a hegemonic sector within the

army sanction and ratify the election results to decide who should govern, but in addition every government was required to neutralize its adversaries in the armed forces before it could have a free hand. This meant placing prestigious and loyal, that is, sympathetic, officers in key positions. Without that famous dispositivo militar, an almost official expression to designate a quasi-institution,^[10] no political stability was possible. Still, the barometer that was constituted by the elections in the Clube Militar had to be in consonance with the orientation of the government. That is, the majority in the elections for the officers of that military social center could not be hostile to the existing government. Thus, in a civilian system with a strong military component, the elections in the Clube Militar became, particularly after 1950, almost as important for the survival of the governments as national political elections.^[11]

It is true that the parties and political forces extended their activities into the army in a quasi-institutionalized way. Thus the conservative party (National Democratic Union—UDN) saw itself as in the line of the Cruzada Democrática, sometimes referred to as the "military UDN," whose leaders took power in 1964. That party also played a role in the first ranks of the coup d'état and populated the civilian ministries of the first "revolutionary" president, Castello Branco. In turn the leaders of the armed forces had their clienteles or civilian alliances, and the passage from the military order to the field of politics was continuous. In the 1945 presidential elections two generals represented the two camps: the UDN was represented by Brigadier General Eduardo Gomes and the Getulists by General Gaspar Dutra for the Social Democratic party. Gomes was a candidate again in 1950 and was beaten this time by Vargas himself. In 1955 he was replaced as the candidate of the UDN by former tenente Juarez Tavora. In 1960 General Teixeira Lott was the candidate of the anti-UDN forces. There were military men in the leadership of the parties and in the congress. General Goes Monteiro, who was a "professionalist" and deeply involved in the national politics of the Getulist era, helped to found the PSD, one of the two parties that were heirs of the Estado Novo, and he was one of its senators as well. This is to say nothing about Luis Carlos Prestes, the "Knight of hope" who soon be-

came a civilian and then general secretary of the Communist party.

In fact, following the logic of "praetorianism"^[12] all groups tried to obtain the support of the military in order to increase their power. If an adversary gained the favor of the military, this did not diminish the "militarist" ardor of those who lost. Thus Salles Oliveira, the unsuccessful adversary of Vargas in 1937, appealed to the military at the beginning of the Estado Novo to reestablish democracy. The former candidate of the liberals for the presidency, in exile at the time, far from attacking the army that had just established the dictatorship, declared, "There is no solution outside of the army to the Brazilian crisis."^[13] Thirty years later the Marxist military historian Werneck Sodrè, in his Historia Militar do Brasil, published immediately after the 1964 coup,^[14] revealed a touching blind faith in the democratic and popular character of his country's army and refuted those who at that time were denouncing the collusion of the Brazilian military with social reactionaries and the interests of grand foreign capital.

While between 1930 and 1964 all the political actors sought to coopt the officers, the interventions of the army were often not strictly military. This was also true of the seizure of power by the army in 1964. We can ask, however, why it was that the military took power at that time directly and for a lasting period, contrary to their earlier practice. In other words, why did the army not limit itself to a corrective intervention? There was no lack of civilian or military justification, which should not be confused with the contemporary or profound causes of the change of regime. In the cold war climate produced by the Cuban crisis it was possible to believe or to pretend to believe in Rio de Janeiro as well as in Brasilia or Washington that the situation was a revolutionary one and that the Communist danger was urgent.^[15] The military were seizing power in an extreme situation to save "democracy"—defined, according to the military and their allies, as "a form of development in which a substantial part of the decisions are made as a result of the free play of market forces"^[16] —in short, capitalism. Given the intensity of the threat regulatory pressure was not enough.

However, the events of 1964 were responses to more com-

plex determinants, some of them immediate, and some more general. It is true, as Peter Flynn emphasizes, that in 1963–64 under the presidency of Goulart everybody in the government and in the opposition was trying "to destroy the formal political system,"^[17] to distort it, or to short-circuit it. In addition, the military leaders were disturbed to see that with Goulart the populist nationalism that they had removed in 1954 had returned to power. The leaders of the right wing of the military, when they could not prevent him from occupying the presidency in September 1961, prepared his overthrow from that time on, and retained the power to prevent a return of the "old demons." Thus Goulart in 1961 was in the situation of Allende in Chile in 1970.^[18] The economic crisis—especially the inflation to which the military bureaucracy is so sensitive—as well as a revolt of the sergeants in Brasilia in September 1963 that was perceived as a revolutionary threat to the hierarchy,^[19] helped to bring about the unity of the military leadership against the constitutional regime and the acceptance within the army of a military tutelage over the state. However, another reading is also possible.

The program of national development that was initiated in the 1930s and that supported the populist political regimes entered into a crisis around 1953–54. This was concealed by creation of the national petroleum company, Petrobras in 1953, but was expressed symbolically by the suicide of Getulio Vargas in the following year.^[20] In the presidency of Juscelino Kubitschek (1956–61), who built Brasilia, the desenvolvimentista policy opened the country to grand international capital and Brazil experienced a new phase of industrialization. In that phase, during which strongly capital-intensive industries were established to produce durable consumer goods with a complex technology, the model of income distribution was changed. The relative expansion of the market among the urban lower classes that was characteristic of the "populist" period ended. Also, social tensions increased at the same time that the "integrating" resources of the state established by Getulio Vargas became more limited and ceased to absorb social conflicts.

Thus, state control over labor based on paternalistic labor legislation was transformed into pressure from a radicalized la-

bor force upon the machinery of the state. The specter of a "syndicalist republic" along the lines of the Peronist model appeared to be an "inversion" of the populist system that no longer served as a guarantee against the social threat. Evidently this phenomenon was perceived as distinctly subversive by the military. A revolutionary general in 1964 saw it in this way when at the same time he condemned both the creator of Brasilia and the former labor minister of Vargas: "An inflationary and pharaonic development . . . was aggravated by the demagogic doctrines of Communism and both of them produced a disastrous wage policy in which the labor unions were manipulated by leaders who were known Communists and wage claims were transformed into demands placed on the government."^[21]

In addition nationalism no longer acted as a restraint on social struggles. The national solidarity of the populist period could not resist the denationalization of large sections of the economy. Also one could see that certain sectors of the internal bourgeoisie that had been sheltered until then by the state now rejected it and embraced the old liberal ideology and/or sought association with foreign firms. The crisis of the populist state was indeed a general crisis of the state. Also, 1964 was a sort of coup pour l'état, that is, an institutional break that was aimed at reconstituting and reinforcing the structure of the state on different bases.

It is not surprising that along parallel lines within the military the nationalist tendency lost ground in the face of the ideological offensive posed by the so-called democratic current that was closely tied to the American army. The cold war and the exhaustion of the program of nationalist development in effect operated in favor of the "Atlanticist" liberals, dominated by the former members of the Brazilian expeditionary force (FEB) during the Second World War. In effect the Brazilian officers of the FEB, which was part of the Fourth Corps of the American army that fought in Italy, formed a nucleus of prestigious officers, a veritable military pressure group devoted to the defense of American-Brazilian friendship as well as that of "the American way of life." This same group of pro-American officers, anti-Vargas and attached to free enterprise, took an important part in the development in the Escola Superior da Guerra (ESG) of the

doctrine of segurança nacional . Although an American mission helped to reorganize the ESG in 1949, this was not in any way a foreign transplant but responded to an intellectual tradition within the army that goes back to tenentismo.^[22] That doctrine, based on the internalization of the values of the cold war of the 1950s, links development and security and gives the army the function of defining "permanent national objectives" while also justifying its usurpation of power. The overall concept of a "dominant antagonism" and of the insurmountable nature of the East-West confrontation that forms its central theme appeared well before the Pentagon in the 1960s invited the armies of the continent to prepare for antisubversive struggle and counterrevolutionary war. However, it is obvious that the strategic reorientation of the Kennedy period reinforced the group of "democratic" officers of the Brasilian Sorbona in opposition to the nationalists who were weakened by the Castroite threat. When the cold war took over the Americas the ESG group was ready to translate that situation in politicocorporate terms and to achieve hegemony within the armed forces.

Furthermore, in 1964, General Castello Branco, head of the revolution, did not claim to be establishing a genuine military dictatorship. The mobilization against Goulart was carried out in the name of a constitutional order that was felt to be threatened by the Communism and demagogy of the populist state. The victors in 1964 were liberals who wished to strengthen and protect the state by purifying the democratic system then in force without abolishing it. For them it was a matter of defending the institutions of the 1946 constitution by forbidding the participation of its presumed "adversaries," the leaders of the left and the populist politicians. That "moderate" program of a protected democracy turned out to be inoperative very quickly in the face of the strength of the traditional parties, the pressures of the more hard-line sectors of the military, and general dissatisfaction with the economic model that was chosen.^[23] After electoral defeats that were unacceptable to the new regime in 1965, who perceived the results as a dangerous popular mobilization against the limitations on democracy and the social cost of the economic model, the president assumed dictatorial powers with the Institutional Act No. 5 of December 1968, thus

formalizing a movement toward authoritarianism that had been going on since 1966.

The Cause of the State

The praetorian reversal that in different ways characterizes the Argentine and Brazilian political systems is only explained tautologically by civilian attempts to coopt the military. To try to understand what has taken place over a period of fifty years in terms of the danger of revolution or control by the Pentagon is both anachronistic and irrelevant. The propensity to intervene and the search for military alliances by the civilian political forces are clear indications of the low level of coherence of the ruling class. In this connection the concept of crisis of hegemony is often used to signify that the dominant group or sector no longer has the legitimacy to direct the society; indeed that no group within the ruling classes is recognized as able to direct development. The alienation of the middle classes that are becoming radicalized and the seizure of the mechanisms of control by the lower classes manifests in a dramatic way the incapacity of the bourgeoisie to "organize the consent" of the lower elements. In these conditions the thesis of a "Bonapartist exchange" between the bourgeoisies and the armed forces seems to have some foundation. In exchange for its economic security the bourgeoisie in crisis cedes to the military the direct control of the state and the political system. As a defensive apparatus, by its nature the military defends what exists and thus in the face of social disintegration, it constitutes a last recourse for the continuation of the system. Nevertheless, these explanations, however attractive they may be, also seem to be inadequate.

Why indeed the military? Would not civilian dictatorships be more reliable, with a lower political cost and greater predictability? The "Bonapartist exchange" with a tractable Napoleon III rather than a state institution could be a better way to overcome the crisis of hegemony. An explanation that concentrates solely on the "inputs" of the crisis does not explain an inevitable resort to the military "output." We must therefore return to the armies themselves to discern the basic reasons for their

control. Usurpation or hegemony of the military takes us back to the nature of the military apparatus and of the state. The transformation of a body within the state into the state itself does not involve only the actions of society.

The Brazilian case illustrates rather well the importance of the relation between the army and the state. Historically the state in Brazil dominated and directed the centrifugal forces that pulled apart the continental immensity that is Brazil. Under the empire and under the new republic after 1930 the state bureaucracy possessed a high level of autonomy. The size of the state machinery can be explained by referring to external dependency and the need for the political center to intervene to counterbalance the instability of world economic fluctuations;^[24] the financial history of the coffee trade testifies to that role. Reference has also been made to the slave trade, the lateness of abolition, and the necessity of state protection of slave masters both abroad and also within the country. The state thus regulated the participation of social actors and served as an intermediary. As Luciano Martins observes correctly, it is difficult to determine the line between the state and the political system,^[25] and parties and pressure groups are directed toward the centralized state—indeed are almost a part of the state. And since the state easily replaces the nation and absorbs and stifles civil society, it is not surprising that its central element should take over the state.

Also the army, the guarantor of that preeminent role, easily becomes the manager of the state machine. It acts to reject social groups and political forces that are obstacles to its functioning and expansion. The military are not "the watchdogs of the oligarchy" or big capital, but the guardians of the state who keep it free from the action of those that they believe may be dangerous or useless. As the gatekeepers of participation in the 1960s, they justified their "statolatry," which was both voracious and rational, in economic terms. Certainly the grandeur of the country and the strategic capabilities of its industry are major concerns of the military. However, growth is also in a way another name for the state. Also, the doctrine of national security that tightly links security and development has no other goal than to remove economic expansion from the vaga-

ries of political life^[26] —which also means eliminating the uncertainty that democracy produces in the state.

The definitions of "national power" developed by the Superior War School are clear in that respect. "National power is the integrated expression of all the means at the disposal of the nation in a given period for the promotion and maintenance by the state, both internally and in the international domain, of the objectives of the nation in spite of all existing opposition."^[27] And the policy of national security is "all the measures, plans, and norms that are directed at removing, reducing, neutralizing, or eliminating the present obstacles to the realization or maintenance of the objectives of the nation." There is a continuity from General Goes Monteiro in 1937 calling for a "progressive augmentation of the power of the state . . . to regulate all collective life"^[28] to General Emilio Garrastazú Média in 1970, after he became president, defending the suppression of liberal democracy by referring to the "violent mutations of the socioeconomic structure" in one phase of planned industrialization.^[29] The dream of the tenentes of a conserving modernization carried out by a "depoliticized" state was finally realized after 1964. The only large bureaucratic corporate group within the state created "the administrative state." If that technocratic authoritarianism remains today to guarantee the system of domination against those who wish to change it, that fact is not merely a translation into military terms of a conservative orientation. The military are not defending the cause of the people, it is true, but they are defending, above all, that of the state. Their ideology is neither fascism nor liberalism, but an "ideology of the state," or as F. H. Cardoso correctly emphasizes, a "nationalistic statism that has replaced the anti-imperialist national populism that preceded it."^[30] This does not mean that the military are endowed with an objectivity that transcends society or that the policies that they support do not favor one or another propertied sector. The ultraliberal model of an economic opening that they imposed in 1964 is a completion of the political counterrevolution. It was intended to liberate the state from the influence of the labor unions and the burden of the nationalist and populist parties. It punished "bad producers and bad consumers"^[31] and produced a regressive redistribution of income.

While doing so, the military maintained their political autonomy, although they did not increase it, and in general they did not act as simple courtiers of the bourgeoisie.

The State and Nonhegemonic Domination

The mechanisms of military domination in Argentina do not differ fundamentally, at least in their apparent goals, from those of Brazil. Through periodic intervention that produced political discontinuities, the Argentine army successively removed from power the middle classes and their representatives (1930), the export agriculture oligarchy (1943), the labor unions and populist parties (1955), the industrial sectors (1962), the traditional political parties (1963), and again the unions and populism in 1976. These measures were preliminary steps to breaking up the combination of the working class and the radicalized middle classes. These interventions, which might seem to be removing the state from the control of the industrialists, the agriculturalists or cattle-raisers, or the organized workers, are most often favorable to the wealthy classes—although not always, as the "1943 revolution" that produced Peronism demonstrates. While the coups d'état of 1955, 1962, 1966, and 1976 took place in periods of high wages that the new regimes ended, in 1943 the wages of labor were low when the conservative president, Ramon B. Castillo, was overthrown and salaries rose sharply under the military government from 1943 to 1946.

Also, in Argentina, the army is neither the party of the middle classes nor the protector of the industrial bourgeoisie, nor the spearhead of the large agrarian bourgeoisie or of the multinational companies. Its interventions change the meaning of the transfers between sectors, and play the role of alternator of social currents. The alternations of coups d'état and military pressures of different content has no other explanation in a society marked since 1930 by recurrent sectoral disequilibria combined with cyclical stagnation.^[32] The external constriction of the Argentine economy that imposes an uneven and unpredictable pace upon it, is the result of a major distortion that can be summarized in general terms as follows: industry, which is

the dynamic and preponderant sector today, depends on the income from agriculture and cattle raising—sectors that are not very dynamic but are central to the economy because they provide foreign exchange. There are no spillover effects. Rather the growth of one sector is at the expense of another. However the interventions of the military shift the respective positions of the various sectors in different directions. In particular they produce transfers to or from agriculture and cattle raising.^[33] This is why, to take a recent example, the replacement of General Rafael Videla by the ephemeral General Roberto Viola in 1981 at the head of the Process of National Reorganization that was established in 1976 was temporarily beneficial to the agroexport sectors, while with José Martinez de Hoz as economic czar during the five preceding years the overvaluation of the peso essentially benefited the financial and speculative sectors. Even with a programmed political succession the fragility of the system was revealed in the rapidity of the oscillations among the sectors.

How does one explain this situation of permanent crisis in a rich country with a highly skilled labor force with almost none of the sociocultural characteristics of underdevelopment? One can single out some special characteristics of that social structure to try to determine the origin of the blockages that paralyze it and then formulate some hypotheses. The specific character of Argentine society is above all the existence of a relatively homogeneous dominant national group that has prestige and dominates the central sector of the economic machine. As distinct from enclave economies (Chile or Venezuela), more diversified export systems (Peru, Mexico), and in contrast with countries that have experienced different cycles of economic prosperity resulting in a temporary period of regional domination (Brazil), modern Argentina has in a way only had a single historical "natural" elite that goes back to—or at times descends directly from—the dominant group that led the country to prosperity at the beginning of the century and revealed it to the world. That group, which has become larger and more diversified, descends partly from those who built the agro-export economy that brought the country into the world market as the provider of wheat and meat.

An initial striking characteristic of Argentina is the small size and social exclusiveness of that minority as opposed to the modern mass character of the society. In a country that is made up of European immigrants working in the tertiary sector and was highly urbanized even before the beginning of industrialization, the expansion of consumption at the beginning of the century was far in excess of the development of productive forces. However, because the agro-export system is worshipped even by those who are its less favored beneficiaries to the point that no political force or social group can put forward an alternative model of development, the geographical expansion of the country that would have assured a dynamic equilibrium and the stability of the whole was ended in 1930. The areas of cultivation have not grown since then, nor has intensive production on the land. The increase in demand for exportable products at the same time as the production remained static created certain significant and unsurmountable confrontations. In 1900 Argentina consumed 46 percent of its agricultural production; in 1958 it consumed 89 percent.^[34] The figures are even more striking for cattle raising alone.

A second relevant characteristic derives from the model of traditional accumulation that gives special consideration to the mobility of investment and consequently permits the grand bourgeoisie to be present in many sectors. This is evidently only possible because of its exclusive access to the state. Before 1930 the low level of economic diversification and the optimal utilization of its comparative advantage lent itself to this strategy and legitimated the role of those who applied. After 1930 with the changes in the structure of the economy and especially after 1950, eclecticism and speculative activities in the economy, rather than leading to the development of the country, produced cyclical stagnation and increased political instability. It is not a matter of holding a dominant multisectorial group responsible for the political constraints, but of describing a socioeconomic mechanism that is based on a financial fluidity that is only made possible because of the permeability of the state.

Without indulging in conspiracy theories, if we consider that the continuity of landed property in Argentina is linked at the highest levels with mobility of resources and diversifica-

tion, we may conclude that the upper bourgeois groups, instead of orienting and promoting development, play a destabilizing role. Time after time, ranchers, farmers, and always financiers and traders, make efforts to protect themselves against "rigid investment schemes"^[35] in order, as good speculators, to be able to take advantage of favorable economic situations and to spread the productive risks. However, the very existence of an influential multisector bourgeois minority prevents the social hegemony of any dominant sector. The confrontations and economic oppositions take place in the different strata within each productive sector, between nondiversified and diversified groups. In addition, the economic diversification of the upper part of the grand bourgeoisie extends to the political scene. Sectoral mobility is reproduced in the area of alliances that allow its permanent domination but prevent its hegemony. Thus, the elite group can ally itself with the lower agrarian elements to form a rural common front (as was the case in 1970); it can team up with certain industrial groups against the nondiversified ranchers as in 1935–40, but these alliances are always precarious and transitory. The objective of the elite and of those who share its socioeconomic and political behavior is to be free of any longer-term commitment and to preserve immediate access to the decisions of the state. In spite of its antistatism and its extreme economic liberalism, this dominant group in fact owes everything to the state, which distributed landed properties in the last century, continues to concede the most lucrative commercial operations, and can favor this or that social group through revenue transfers. Because of its dearly defended vital position, this group possesses a veritable economic veto power that it can transform rapidly into a power of political "delegitimation."

It is easy to understand how these activities—which are imbedded in the underlying fabric of a political system that has little autonomy—and this central position of a versatile dominant group constituted the underlying bases for a praetorian system. The war of all against all is precisely the destiny of that watchful "oligarchy." This is true because the aristocracy is involved in structural opposition to all economic and social

groups: to the agricultural producers because it is more closely tied to international trade and the places where prices are determined, and to the nondiversified industrialists because of monetary policy, the assignment of financial resources, and the character of industrialization. It is no accident that of the three largest countries in Latin America, Argentina is the most backward in heavy industry and capital equipment. In addition, as a minority "alternative" group in conflict with nearly all domestic social sectors, the bourgeoisie cannot adopt compromises or forge the stable and permanent alliances necessary to establish hegemony because it would lose its power and domination. For that structural reason it is opposed in principle to a government that is responsive to public opinion and the "blind law of numbers." Argentina thus has domination without hegemony, which is indicated, for example, by the lack of a modern conservative party that can win elections.

As for the armed forces, apart from the fact that they constitute the terrain and the objective in the struggles among the wealthy groups, their relation to the system lies in their identification with the state. This army-state that has a margin of autonomy in relation to the upper classes—specifically the dominant section—is marginally linked to all the organized groups. This permits it to "aggregate" divergent sectoral interests from an institutional perspective—that is, in pursuit of professional objectives. Thus at times the army can impose on the system, in order better to defend it, the changes that appear to be necessary in the economic, political and social areas. The social policy of Peronism—neutrality in the Second World War and the development of heavy industry—are all striking examples of actions in defense of the status quo that went beyond the wishes of their own beneficiaries.

Thus the actions of the military, which seem to be opposed to the lasting supremacy of any sector, reinforce, in most cases involuntarily, but sometimes voluntarily, the multisector oligarchy linked to the state. When it reestablishes the social equilibrium and prevents any one sector from dominating the others, the army aims at the preservation of the system. In fact it imposes a social deadlock that does not allow it to overcome the

hegemonic crisis, but rather perpetuates it. By blocking social disequilibria that are the motors of evolution and progress, stabilizing interventions congeal Argentine society and prolong its overall crisis. They reproduce the political instability from which the "activist businessmen" of the grand bourgeoisie draw their profit. The "institutionalization of illegitimacy,"^[36] rather than creating the bases for a "strong and solid democracy" that will no longer require the recourse to the military (as the "revolutionary" texts of the military proclaim), each time further weakens the chances of a representative system.

Military Invasion, or War by Other Means

There is no doubt that once in power the army, as a usurping body of the state, tends to take over the government, whatever deference its chiefs may pay to representative institutions. Thus in Brazil the system of military domination went from the "manipulated democracy" of General Humberto Castello Branco to a form of modernizing authoritarian state with a constitutional and pluralist facade, beginning in 1968. The "compulsory twoparty system" and a tolerated peripheral competitiveness gave a popular appearance to the emergency regime. Nevertheless, the military guardians seem to have made it a rule between 1968 and 1976 to violate their own laws. The militarization of the state appeared to be the natural inclination of the regime.

Not only did the armed forces control the presidential succession without paying attention to constitutional provisions, as could be seen at the time of the illness of President Costa e Silva in 1969,^[37] but until 1978 the naming of the official candidate for president was the private preserve of an assembly of generals, with the dominant party and the legislature being content to ratify their choice. In 1978, in place of a meeting of the "little senate" of generals, the Planalto Group around President Ernesto Geisel imposed a crown prince, General João Batista Figueiredo, without the endorsement of the grand electors in uniform—which produced a serious crisis in the army and initiated a certain "deinstitutionalization" of the military regime.^[38]

In addition, that regime, which was quick to modify the rules of the game whenever they were unfavorable to it,^[39] began to concentrate the powers of the other branches in the executive. Furthermore, in a parallel way bureaucratic military organs or those with a military preponderance began to develop as centers of executive decision making. Among them we should note the army high command, the National Information Service (SNI), and the National Security Council, the last two created by the regime after 1964. The SNI, the command of which seemed to constitute an inside track to the highest political responsibilities, began to appear as an "invisible ministry."^[40] Its representatives were present in all the ministerial departments, and it covered the country with a dense network of informers. One can understand the political resources of the head of the SNI within the military apparatus.^[41] The National Security Council, only created by decree in 1969, was in a way the theoretical center of power. The constitutional reform of 1969 assigned it the task of "establishing the permanent objectives and bases of national policy"—no less. Its twenty-one members included, besides the president, the vice president, the head of the SNI, and the heads of the civilian and military staffs of the president. It was the holy of holies in a regime that by definition put questions of national security in first place. From 1964 until 1974, the date when General Geisel became president, the hardening of the armed forces in the face of the progress and radicalization of the opposition resulted in an expansion of the jurisdiction of the military, as well as the militarization of the institutions of government. We can even ask if attempts were not made, with little success it is true, to militarize society as well. Along with the ideology of "Brazil, as a great power," the Rondon Project to mobilize the students, the work camps in the northeast, and the TransAmazonian effort seemed to reveal such a perspective. From 1969 until 1974 in particular the important decisions of the regime were based on essentially military criteria. We might even say that what was happening at that time was a process of "decivilianization" of Brazilian society. The spread of concepts of national security to the center of the productive apparatus because of the presence of officers of high rank in the directorships of large companies

and of the civilian trainees at the Superior War School would seem to be examples of that phenomenon.^[42]

During that period decisions in the areas of energy and natural resources seem to have depended more on strategic concerns than simple economic rationality. The historical confrontation with Argentina, the rival power for continental leadership, and geopolitical considerations were the reasons for the "hard-line" conflictual positions concerning the development of the Mutún iron mines in Bolivia, the construction of the Itaipú dam on the Paraná River, and the signing of the 1975 nuclear agreement with the Federal Republic of Germany. The recent rapprochement with Argentina that ended the "war of the dams" and amounted to Argentine acceptance of Brazilian supremacy seems to confirm this interpretation. In any case, the Brazilian veto on the use by Argentina of Bolivian iron, the intransigence of Itamaraty with regard to the states that border on the Paraná, and the German-Brazilian nuclear development plan were not decided only on the basis of the country's energy needs, still less because of its needs for iron ore of which Brazil is a major exporter, but totally for military reasons.^[43]

In Argentina, where military intervention totally suspended all the procedures of representative government, militarization was still more obvious. However, it adopted different forms depending on the regime. The bureaucratic-political institutions were not the same in 1966 and in 1976; the military presence was at different levels. In 1966 the sine qua non condition that General Onganía posed in order to assume the presidency was that the military chiefs would be kept out of power. The junta of commanders in chief only governed the country on the day of the coup—just long enough to name the president. Onganiá acquired total power in the country. The military chiefs who put him in office owed him obedience. Right there, no doubt, there was a source of conflict, since the inspired autocrat who overthrew President Arturo Illía set no limit on his term of office.

The monarchic character of the executive did not prevent military concerns from permeating the orientation of the regime and its political organism. As in Brazil, national defense legiti-

mized the "state of exception." "No security without development, no development without security," said the secretary of the National Security Council. The regime's legislation therefore was directed toward the possibility of war and the needs determined by the general staff. The laws on national defense and on the civil service thus demonstrated, according to a Catholic magazine, "an over-development of the concept of security and the militarization of civilian life."^[44] This excessive character of the power of the military is also evident in the considerable prerogatives given to the National Security Council (CONASE) and the State Information Service (SIDE). Nevertheless the army was not in power and the number of executive functions taken over by officers remained rather limited.

In 1976 it was entirely different. The Onganía precedent, and the requirements and effects of the "dirty war" against subversion, reversed the relationships between the junta of commanders in chief and the president. After a few attempts at independence by General Videla, the president was reduced by the junta that appointed him to the position of an executive to carry out the directions given by the armed forces. Collegiality replaced military monarchy. The desire to remain in power, to keep the initiative against the civilians and to maintain a harmonious institutional continuity, was the justification for that new organization of power. Development was no longer the order of the day as in 1966, and because the Argentine military thought of themselves as at war, bureaucratic machinations were more limited and the administration was colonized by officers. The planning councils that were the instruments of military participation under Onganía no longer had a reason for existence.

The important thing was to avoid internal military conflicts or to institutionalize them. The Military Legislative Council (CAS) and the secretariat of the presidency played a certain role in this regard.^[45] For the rest, officers were everywhere in the central administration, the provinces, the decentralized organisms (including even the organization of the world soccer football championship in 1978—Ente autárquico Mundial 1978 —and the Industrial Pension Fund). Never in any preceding regime had there been such an invasion—yet another distinguishing

feature of the bloodiest military dictatorship in the history of Argentina.

The Expansion of the State and the Logic of Corporatism

Authoritarianism never functions without an increase in the political bureaucracy that is responsible for the control and repression of dissidents and opponents. A strong state does not necessarily require the development of the economic responsibilities of the government. However, political systems of military domination, even those that subscribe to an ultraliberal creed in economics and open the country to international capital, generally also produce an increase in the size of the nationalized sector. We can assume that the natural inclination of the technocrats in uniform is toward statism; nevertheless, their statist behavior and natural institutional tendency to extend the area of state control is no doubt reinforced by more individual considerations. The military in power, by creating, multiplying, and colonizing public enterprises and services, thus join the bourgeoisie through the state. This can lead to an "attachment" to state capitalism or it can stimulate fruitful movements of privatization. It all depends on the strength and power of the local bourgeoisie.

In Salvador between 1972 and 1978 the military were at the head of twenty-five of the most important autonomous state institutions—as different as the Institute of Rural Colonization, the port of Acajutla, the Salvadoran Coffee Company, the administration of the dam on the Lempa River, telecommunications, the central bank, and social security.^[46] However, faced with the oligarchy of the "fourteen" or so families, the majority of the military defended the state, which explains the fits of reformism and autonomy of the army—a recent instance of which took place on 15 October 1979. Such reforms as have occurred have generally been overcome by the intransigence of a grand bourgeoisie that has forgotten nothing and learned nothing since the peasant massacres of 1932.

In Guatemala things have gone differently. In that milita-

rized state in which the army owns a very successful commercial bank, the officers buy land or expropriate it from the Indians and engage in business, while the Guatemalan bourgeoisie of large landowners has ceased to be a dominant class. The "tranversal fringe" in the north of Guatemala that produces lumber and has good land for agriculture and cattle and where some petroleum deposits have been found is a kind of Wild West or El Dorado for the speculators of the "rising class," including the military. General Lucas García, president from 1978 until 1982, is reported to be an important property holder in that region. The left and the extreme left use the term "bureaucratic bourgeoisie" for the superior officers and their civilian partners who have become rich over the last fifteen years because of their control of the state through means that are not always licit. The opposition attacks the greed of those bureaucratic camarillas . One of the guerrilla movements operating in the country characterized the "class enemy" and the situation in which the guerrilla war is being carried out as follows: "The army, until recently the exclusive servant of the oligarchy is now directly involved in the establishment of the bureaucratic bourgeoisie  . . . and has become the exclusive instrument of its political and military power."^[47]

Bolivia, with its cocaine-trafficking colonels, would seem to be similar to Guatemala in this regard. It may be thought that the succession of coups d'état that have been carried out since 1978 was the result of the greed of a military without masters, with each faction or even each graduating class of officers wanting its part of the booty. Nevertheless the conflicts of interest within military society, the involvement of business, and even the gangsterism of certain "pure hard-line" officers is not enough to explain the whole reality. The creation during the 1970s of the Armed Forces Corporation for National Development (COFADENA) also indicates the desire of certain of the military to replace indirectly the languishing bourgeoisie and to turn the army into an entrepreneur. The COFADENA establishes not only industries with military purposes but also agroindustrial enterprises. Furthermore, the army, for reasons related to the economy as an extended element of frontier security, has become a land developer in Bolivia.^[48] If we add to that

some 150 enterprises that depend more or less directly on the state and that are directly run by military men at the same time, we will understand that here as well the officers form a ruling bureaucratic caste whose known excesses do not make it easy for them to give up power.

In this respect, Argentina has been an institutionally militarized state for a long time. Concerned about the "critical strategic dependency" of an agricultural country without industry the Argentine military has demonstrated an interest in industrialization since the beginning of the century and acted as a pressure group in favor of industry in the face of a bourgeoisie that was convinced of the virtues of laissez-faire and the permanence of comparative advantage. Military nationalism that was demonstrated in the area of petroleum by generals Mosconi and Baldrich,^[49] also worked with General Savio in favor of an Argentine steel industry that was to take many years to be developed. Nevertheless in 1927, General Justo, minister of war under President Alvear, dedicated an airplane factory in Cordoba that in the following year began to produce a small series of models under European license.

However, the important date is October 1941, when in the middle of World War II and at the urging of the army, a law established the General Directorate of Military Manufactures (DGFM) as an autonomous agency under the Ministry of War. The articles of incorporation of the DGFM expressed in clear terms the deliberate intention of the state to establish a national industry. In fact, the declaration went well beyond the simple production of arms and munitions. The law gave the DGFM extensive powers to study the industrial capacity of the country, the responsibility to explore for and develop minerals, and to produce the industrial elements needed for "civilian consumption when they were not being produced by private industry. "^[50] Thus, we can understand why from that time on the military controlled either implicitly or explicitly the bulk of the public sector of the Argentine economy. The military led the way in steel with the Altos Hornos de Zapla; they were never totally absent from the railroads, which appealed to them in periods of crisis; and they were involved in the national oil company that

from the time of General Mosconi under President Hipólito Yrigoyen formed part of their natural zone of influence.

The participation of the DGFM in the creation of joint ventures in accordance with the 1941 law further increased the industrial responsibilities of the military. This kind of company was established in most of the steel industry and many kinds of chemicals from phenyl alcohol and fertilizer to plastics. If we add that the factories of Fabricaciones Militares produced the cars for the Buenos Aires metro and plow wheels and bottles of butane, we can understand the way in which the military began to be linked to the public enterprises and that at the same time these industrialists in uniform could easily "move over" into private industry.

If we now examine the policy that was followed beginning in 1976 with General Videla, which was characterized by a savage economic liberalism, we can ask whether the orientations of the army were not contradictory. In fact the program of Martinez de Hoz, his finance minister, which was supported by the army, reduced internal consumption and opened the country to foreign competition. This policy produced a deep industrial recession, the elimination of many national enterprises, and even the closing of industries that produced durable consumer goods and of branches of the multinationals (automobiles, electronics, etc.). The "deindustrialization," which was in a way planned, did not however produce a notable tapering off of public expenditures. In addition, the general philosophy favoring the "subsidiary" character of the role of the state in the economy did not result in a notable wave of privatization. The economic crisis produced by the monetarist policy was no doubt partially responsible, but the size of the military apparatus was also important. The opening of the economy not only went against the statist behavior of the army leadership but also their vested interests, which had been increased because of the expansion of the state. In the administration itself the game of clientelism and fiefdoms did not allow the rationalization so often proclaimed and sanctioned by law. For the military, no doubt as a result of their training, the number of men is more important than the values of a balanced budget or profit. We

should also not forget that a program of arms production requires the development of heavy industry.

In Brazil the 1964 coup d'état established an authoritarian regime that was ultraliberal in the area of economics. A good number of observers believed at the time that the liquidation of the public sector, or at least of a part of it, figured among the most important objectives of the new government. In fact, the Castellista or Febista group that took over the state seemed to have an unlimited enthusiasm for the values of free enterprise. That orientation was also written into the constitution that described the role of the state as "complementary" to that of private enterprise.^[51] Successive presidents, even those who did not identify with the ESG group, seemed to share those same concerns. Thus the Plan of Government of General Médici in 1970 called among other things for "the consolidation of an economic system based on national and foreign private enterprise" and "the rationalization of the public sector" in order to "reverse the pre-1964 tendency to nationalization."^[52] Nevertheless, the expansion of the public sector and of state capitalism seems to have been one of the distinguishing features of the Brazilian regime.

This phenomenon had several aspects. First of all, the Brazilian federal state, no longer burdened with the pressures of the politicians and electoral constraints, improved its administration and made it more technical. Its ability to tax became very much improved. In addition, thanks to a program of forced savings imposed on the workers, the state in the larger sense accounted for 64 percent of national savings.^[53] Between 1970 and 1973 50 percent of gross national investment came from the government or from the public enterprises.^[54] Some writers claim that that figure reached 70 percent in 1980. Since 1964 the Brazilian state has had the means to direct the whole of economic life. Not only has it until recently strictly determined the annual wage increases but it controlled national savings since it was the principal banker; it also had new instruments for regulating the economy, such as the National Monetary Council and the Interministerial Price Council,^[55] two high-level instrumentalities that developed the financial policy of the country in a bureaucratic manner.

The increase in state responsibility in the area of industry is not the least paradoxical element of Brazil under the military. While the state's control over savings and investment gave it enormous economic power, its role in production, which began before 1964, apparently allowed it overwhelming power in that sphere as well. In 1974, out of the 5,113 largest companies 39 percent of the assets belonged to public enterprises, 18 percent to foreign firms, and 43 percent to private national capital. But only one private enterprise (a foreign one) ranked in the 25 largest. Among the 100 companies in the country with the largest liquid capital, 41 were public enterprises in 1970, and 46, in 1972. And out of 550 or 580 companies that belonged to the state in 1980, around 200 did not exist before the April Revolution.^[56]

While the share of national private capital seems to have steadily declined since 1964, the public enterprises have expanded more rapidly than the foreign private sector. Certainly, the state has invested in particular in infrastructure, energy, and intermediate goods, but it controls some dynamic sectors and the integrated structure of giants such as Petrobras and Vale do Rio Doce (steel) sometimes makes it compete with the private sector, especially in the area of banking and finance.

It is certainly not correct to argue that the Brazilian state is content to invest in areas of low return that do not interest private capital. The thesis that public enterprise and the economic policy of the military state were at the service of the interests of national, and especially of foreign, industrialists has to be seriously qualified. Proof of this is the antiestatização campaign against the "tentacles of the state" carried out by the large industrialists and defenders of private enterprise in 1975–76. That sector seemed so little ready to admit that it was the principal beneficiary of the expansion of the public sector that General Figueiredo,^[57] to calm the capitalists and to reestablish their confidence, promised to limit the increase of the state as entrepreneur and to privatize a certain number of nationalized companies as part of his campaign of "debureaucratization."^[58]

The debate on estatização and the "state bourgeoisie" showed how the regime was perceived by certain economic circles. The disenchanted polemics of the large liberal press and of certain officers of the multinational enterprises who viewed

present day Brazil as "a socializing regime," or even a socialist one,^[59] indicated their surprise and disappointment at an apparently unresolvable contradiction. Why did Brazil after 1964 become, to use the words of Fernando Henrique Cardoso, a "hybrid system" that aspired at the same time "to respond to the interest of oligopolistic capitalism and to strengthen public enterprise, while enlarging the area of decision of the government and its ability to control civil society"?^[60]

We can assume, of course, that the choice of a type of accelerated growth implies today a strengthening of the control capacity and the intervention of the state—that is, "a growth state is a growing state," in the words of Henry Lefebvre. But one should be especially careful to relate that view to the behavior of the actors. A continuing effort to expand and centralize the state by the armed forces in Brazil is a reality that goes back, as we have seen, to the first military presidents of the Old Republic. However, besides that national characteristic we cannot neglect the many similar examples of statist behavior in other militarized states. It is significant to read in the June 1981 issue of Búsqueda, the organ of the Uruguayan "Chicago boys," a violent attack on the dangerous "socialist" tendencies of the Montevideo regime.^[61] The argument juxtaposes the ideal of economic freedom to the national security concerns put forward by the military to preserve the public enterprises.

Divisions and Decisions within the "Military Parties"

The general tendency of the military state that we have just described does not mean either that characteristics common to the military will orient all praetorian systems in the same way or that the armed forces of Latin America are monolithic organizations with ways of acting that are mechanically predictable. Since they are political forces, they are affected by different currents, and they experience internal disagreements and deep divisions that are not concealed by the obligatory rhetoric concerning institutional unity. While armies, by definition, are not political parties, neither are they islands cut off from civil soci-

ety. Their involvement in the body of society is all the greater when they have significant power. This does not mean that politically they simply reflect the struggles among the civilians. They are a mirror and a player in praetorianized public life, of course, but with specific internal processes that result from a special institutional mould. It would be difficult to believe that the distortion of the institution that military usurpation produces would destroy the particular nature of the strongly statist Latin American armies. Their extramilitary role transforms these armies into ambiguous political forces. Except when they break up or decompose and thus lose their politically distinguishing features, the "military parties" resemble party organizations very little, even though they may carry out the same functions that the parties do. Two of the principal differences—besides the essential and obvious purpose of providing the defensive structure of the state through a monopoly of arms and preparation for combat—are the authoritarian process of socialization and the marginal character of the ideological beliefs of the army.

The internal groups and political tendencies are organized around specific cleavages. These often appear to follow organizational lines. While in France the air force as a quasi-civilian branch is traditionally considered to be rather republican in its orientation, the Argentine air force appears to be fascist in its leanings, the navy is supposed to be ultraliberal economically, and the tank corps—that is, the cavalry—is supposed to be typically aristocratic, the last refuge of the "great names" of the oligarchy of the pampas. In Cuba under Batista the navy was considered unreliable and sympathetic to the opposition, as Fidel Castro recalled publicly after the attack on the Moncada barracks.^[62] Only historians can keep track of the particular views of the services or branches. More frequently, hierarchic divisions within a group of officers in the same branch give rise to conflict because they reflect differences in generations or in education or experience. In Guatemala after 1944 the career officers who graduated from the military school were opposed to the officers promoted from the ranks, who considered them as too intellectual and liberal.^[63] In Brazil, as we have seen, the military rebellion of the "lieutenants" in the

1920s figured as a sort of "generational insurrection," the cohesion of which affected in a decisive fashion the evolution of the army and the country until 1964. More recently in Bolivia, the coup d'état of General Padilla in November 1978 marked the emergence of a new generation of officers (the grupo generacional in the politico-military jargon of La Paz) that graduated from the military school after the 1952 army purge and the reform that the new revolutionary power carried out at that time.^[64]

A change in the content of the training produces ideological shifts. Foreign military influences affect these reorientations whether they modify or transform the concept of the threat perception or the war theories, or they produce hierarchical distortions that very soon acquire political significance. In Chile, as we have seen, an army that was supposed to be democratic and apolitical "tilted" toward the opposition to Allende partly under the pressure of the commanders of the units formed after 1965 to fight the guerrillas and against the internal enemy. In Brazil from 1919 to 1925, the French mission strengthened the current of renewal among the young officers who supported military reform against their superiors who were members of the establishment.

The cleavages that are related to the experiences of a group or unit are particularly decisive when it has participated in an internal or external conflict. Most of the officers who took power in Brazil in 1964 had been members of the Brazilian expeditionary corps in Italy (the FEB), as had General Castello Branco. General Costa e Silva, who succeeded him as president, represented a group that was not as close to the GI's and had no contact with the ESG created by the FEBistas. He represented the group of "troopers" that was separated by more than slight differences from the intellectuals of the Sorbona . This reached the point that General Hugo Abreu, in speaking of him later, made the naive observation, "At that time I did not really understand why the departure of President Castello Branco and the succession to the presidency of General Costa e Silva was viewed as the coming to power of an opposition party."^[65]

It is evident that the special characteristics of these politicoinstitutional cleavages do not always derive from a clearly identifiable ideology. In fact, armies, even when they act as political forces, are not structures that "function on the basis of ideology." The political inconsistency of the military—which only is asserted as a result of a partisan version of what it means to be faithful to a political creed—is a general characteristic of the most "militarized" armies of Latin America. Thus in Argentina the labor-oriented and antioligarchical colonels of 1943 were the same persons who were the fascist-oriented and antipopular captains of 1930. In the case of the Dominican Republic, it has been demonstrated how little ideological motivations had to do with the participation of the military in the overthrow of the progressive government of Juan Bosch in September 1963 and of that of his rightist successor. In general it was the same officers who carried out the coup against Bosch and then, seventeen months later, revolted in order to bring him back, producing the intervention of the American marines.^[66] It is true that the Dominican army is not a model of a professionalized institution. But how to explain the recent about-face of the famous Brazilian parachute brigade? This elite corps that spearheaded the repression of the guerrilla movements of the left and that on several occasions publicly manifested extreme positions against an authoritarian regime that it judged to be too liberal for its taste found itself in the avant garde of the "dissidents" of the military in 1978, opposing Geisel and Figueiredo by raising the unexpected standard of democratization.^[67] This phenomenon which surprised the political analysts and the Brazilian "barracks experts," can be explained in good part by the personal evolution of General Hugo Abreu, who successfully commanded the parachute troops for more than four years. Formerly chief of the military staff of Geisel, president of the National Security Council, and member of the FEB, after breaking with the Planalto Group (the presidential circle of General Geisel), Abreu brought his military base with him.^[68] One can never underestimate the effect of personal loyalty on the mechanisms of political alignment.

Just as spectacular and as difficult to explain for the politi-

cal class is the politico-military evolution of Honduras in the 1960s and 70s. The same general who established a repressive cold war dictatorship in 1963 took power again in 1972 in order to impose reforms that had an undeniable popular support. Was it opportunism, a change of heart, a shift in the international situation? The Communist party of Honduras was upset. A member of the party leadership wrote in 1974: "How can we explain what is happening today in Honduras? How can we explain that General López Arellano, the same person who carried out the bloody coup d'état in 1963 and fiercely persecuted the Communist and popular leadership, now heads a progressive government which respects democratic and labor union freedoms, and, what is more important, is carrying out programs of social change that undoubtedly affect the very bases of oligarchic power?"^[69]

These clear movements from extreme right to the left, to use the cardinal points of the classical political landscape, are nevertheless not insignificant. They result from internal struggles and oppositions, and at times an intense political life in which the whole ideological spectrum is represented. In Brazil in the 1950s the debates and the publication of the Military Club indicate that even the pro-Communist left was represented in the army. Certainly, the scandal produced by an article favorable to North Korea in the July 1950 number of the club's magazine does not mean,^[70] as was said at the time, that the club was about to turn into a "Soviet island,"^[71] but rather that these opinions were in a minority. However, they were present. We can better understand the clearly political functioning of the military structure as it appears in the testimony of Marshal Odilio Denys, one of the initiators of the conspiracy of the military against Goulart. He declared, "In 1960 in the army and the other branches there were leftist elements who clearly argued for a program of the left. This has been the case since 1930. When I was Minister of War in 1960 and foresaw that the danger was becoming greater, to defend ourselves I made an alliance between the center and the right within the army. In that way I obtained the harmonious front needed to struggle against Communism which was emerging among the officers of the left."^[72] Who would believe that these subtle parliamentary

maneuvers were carried out within a highly professional military structure?

If the internal conflicts are evident and the cleavages authenticated and explicable, we can ask how the cohesion and consensus necessary for extramilitary action was arrived at. It would evidently be wrong to believe that the political decisions of the armed forces are entirely disciplined and impeccably hierarchic. Indiscipline does not exercise command. Political action by the army requires political resources. The most institutionalized and apparently unanimous interventions only take place without problems if there has been a long preparation of public, and especially of military, opinion. The most spectacular case of this kind of programmed intervention was the 1966 coup d'état in Argentina, the date of which was announced by the press one year in advance, with an error of only a few days. On the other hand, a certain amount of violence is necessary to maintain operational unity. If the Chilean army did not split in September 1973 as expected, it was because the senior and junior officers who supported Popular Unity were quickly removed by force for refusing to obey. In Brazil in 1964 the leaders of the "revolution" were content to retire several hundred officers. It is true that the opposition is not always in a minority and there are occasionally violent confrontations between military tendencies which do not split the army as an institution. The limited internal war between the Azules and Colorados in 1962–63 in Argentina passed the stage of symbolic violence but observed certain rules to safeguard the institution.

Most often a subgroup, a faction, or simply a tendency imposes its intellectual leadership and ideology. Thus, a kernel of activists succeeds in polarizing the whole leadership structure and imposes its hegemony by restructuring the ideological-strategic field to its benefit. The development of an articulated overall "doctrine" such as took place in the Superior War School in Brazil facilitates that control and leadership. The perception of a threat to the group allows the ranks to be closed and makes the moderates and legalists "tilt." In Brazil the maladroit support given by Goulart to the rebellions of the noncommissioned officers dug the grave of the democratic regime. The

attacks by the guerrillas against officers created a corporate reaction that led to a coup in both Uruguay in 1973 and Argentina in 1976. In addition, the effort to consolidate military unity often dampens conflicts or challenges. It leads to a restructuring of alliances in pursuit of a unifying objective. This can be the struggle against an exaggerated enemy—Communism, subversion, or imperialism—or a movement to take direct action to facilitate coincidental agreements among ideologically opposing sectors. In Argentina in June 1943, the proaxis neutralists and the proallied liberals joined together to overthrow the government as each group deceived the other. In the same country the confrontations between the military factions in 1962–63 produced a rapprochement of points of view between the victors and the vanquished in the name of institutional unity.

The fluidity of ideological tendencies allows for political shifts that respond to the relations of forces and in particular to the external situation. Since by nature armies are situated where national and international interests meet, the changes in power within the military society are often linked to changes in the global context. However, corporate political codes, indeed veritable tribal rites, act to limit confrontation and to reestablish consensus within the officer corps in regimes that are profoundly praetorianized. Assemblies of generals electing a military president have been standard practice in militarized states for a long time. That system worked well in Brazil for fourteen years. It seems to have been established with more difficulty in Argentina in 1976. Stricter "rules" governing such elections have been progressively imposed in the "Colonels' Republic" of El Salvador. In the oldest military state in the continent each class graduating from the military school (tanda ) had the "right" to one president.^[73] The tandas formed alliances to be sure, but in this way each of some 500 officers had some chance of approaching the joys of power and the system avoided caudilloism and a monopoly by one clique. This system guaranteed the maintenance of military power until 1979. In Guatemala the conflicts between classes of the military school are attenuated by an internal institution of the officer corps that assures a certain intergenerational cohesion: the practice of the centenario . In the polytechnical school those

who have the same last two registration numbers have a relationship of aid and support. Thus, number 421 has special responsibilities for cadet number 521 when he enters the school.^[74] This military compadrazgo tells us a great deal about the importance of personal loyalty in the operation of "complex differentiated organizations," the political character of which should not make us forget their functional specificity and institutional nature.

10—
Revolution by the General Staff

The majority of the military interventions in Latin America today are carried out to reestablish order—indeed, to put forward a "new order." Most of the coups d'état in the 1960s and 1970s have produced de facto governments that, by linking political regression and sodal counterrevolution, resulted in guaranteeing the status quo and limiting popular participation in power. The world image of the Latin American military man who carries out a coup is correctly that of a "gorilla" who is willing to identify the struggle against subversion with a rejection of change and support for a continental anti-Communist crusade under the aegis of the United States.

This is why coups d'état that proclaim themselves nonconservative and say they intend to place themselves on the side of the people produce considerable incredulity. Observers are at least surprised,^[1] or they attribute the new military policy to a trick by "imperialism" or to the opportunism of the military. Domestic political forces are equally perplexed when faced with these apparently new militarisms, to say nothing of the members of the international sodal science community who rack their brains to define and classify these reformist authoritarian regimes.

Nevertheless, it would be wrong to identify the Peruvian coup d'état purely and simply with the so-called "revolutions" that took place in Brazil in 1964 or in Argentina in 1966—which is not to say, however, that its "revolutionary nationalism" was

unique and unprecedented because of some nontransferable particular national characteristic. There is no need to appeal to an improbable "Inca Utopia" or to the domination of the "Asiatic mode of production" in the Peruvian highlands in order to comprehend the meaning of the regime of General Velasco Alvarado. The coming to power of General Alfredo Ovando in Bolivia on 26 September 1969 and that of General Juan José Torres a few months later seemed to confirm the Peruvian experiment by indicating that it was not unique, while in a very different geopolitical context the style of behavior adopted by the government of the national guard in Panama beginning in October 1968 had a sufficient number of affinities with the two Andean regimes to prevent one from believing that this kind of neomilitarism is limited geographically. Furthermore, the military who took power in Ecuador in February 1972 also appealed to revolutionary nationalism while promulgating reforms that were a silent echo of the ones carried out by the "nationalist revolutionary government of the left" in Lima. Even Honduras, still in the shadow of Don Tiburcio, the prototype of the patriarch, did not escape this tendency. The officers who overthrew its fragile constitutional government on 4 December 1972 intended to carry out structural reforms "to modernize the economy and national society." Furthermore, what shall we say about the military participation in the coup d'état that ended the conservative military dictatorship of General Romero in El Salvador? The defeat of Colonel Carlos Majano and his supporters in a situation of violent social polarization should not conceal from us the existence of reformist sectors within a military "establishment" historically linked to the fierce defense of the status quo.

In fact, the novel character of these military orientations is entirely relative. From a historical viewpoint reformism has numerous precedents in the region. As we have seen, it even appears in several countries as the first manifestation of a modernized military.^[2] Also, it was for a long period a constitutive element of political militarization in Latin America, to the point that some authors have correctly emphasized "the movement of the pendulum in contemporary military interventions."^[3] Nevertheless, far from being unique to the Latin American conti-

nent these "military Utopias" are represented in a more prudent and pragmatic form than in other continents where progressive military are not rare. Europe had the "red" praetorians of "the revolution of the carnations" in Portugal. Today in Africa we see officers imposing a socialist orientation on their countries and sometimes boasting openly of their Marxist-Leninism, as in the Congo-Brazzaville, Benin, or Ethiopia.^[4] Certainly, Africa is a geopolitically divided area and the weak link in the Western armor, while the locking-up of the American "backyard" after 1960 seemed more propitious for a conservative retrenchment than a wave of reform. This diversity is what makes these experiments in a "revolution from above" interesting, and their accomplishments and limitations are related both to the particular military of each country and to changes in the situation in the continent.

Humanist Modernization and the "Noncapitalist" Path in Peru

The coup d'état of October 1968, the eighth in this century, took place after nearly five years of civilian constitutional rule and produced nearly unanimous protests from the parties and labor unions.^[5] Nevertheless, neither the statute of the revolution or the manifesto of the revolutionary government repeated the old military phraseology. It was not a question of the threat of international communism, or of preserving order or defending patriotism, but of putting an end to the "abandonment of the natural sources of wealth,"^[6] of condemning "an unjust social order," and of "transforming social, economic, and cultural structures."^[7] The first important decision of the junta that deposed President Fernando Belaunde was not to arrest the heads of the labor unions or dissolve the parties of the left, but to seize the refinery of Talara and the oil wells that belonged to the International Petroleum Company, an affiliate of Standard Oil of New Jersey, and then to nationalize the holdings of that American company without compensation. The government also proclaimed the date that Talara was seized as "The Day of National Dignity."

The new government, which did not claim to follow any model and rejected capitalism as well as communism and anticommunism, as a way to conceal a refusal to change,^[8] sought to achieve a "humanist revolution" that would result in the establishment of a "social democracy with full participation."^[9] In fact the "process" of "the Peruvian experiment," as those who carried it out called it, was inspired, President Velasco Alvarado himself said,^[10] by "revolutionary socialism." And as Velasco Alvarado said in a speech in July 1969,

Almost ten months ago . . . the armed forces in the first revolutionary movement in their history took over the government of Peru. It was not just one more military coup d'état but the beginning of a nationalist revolution. . . . The whole nation and the armed forces took up the march towards their definitive liberation, and established the bases for their genuine development by breaking the power of an egoistic and colonialist oligarchy, recovering their sovereignty despite foreign pressures.

It is not surprising also that the military in Peru, unlike the others, received revolutionary endorsement from Fidel Castro beginning in 1969.^[11]

The orientation, however, was not only explained in "revolutionary" declarations, but also expressed in action. The junta that replaced President Belaunde was determined to use its position to force the reforms that the weak constitutional government had been incapable of carrying out. To that end it was going to struggle on two fronts—to modernize the very archaic Peruvian society and to lessen the external dependence of the country while taking account of geopolitical constraints. The objective consisted in removing the internal and external obstacles to a harmonious development in solidarity. Observers of different persuasions generally agree on that point.^[12]

The measures adopted formed a system in which basic reforms continued to be carried out with a view to the necessity of increasing the political "capital" of the military government. The expropriation of IPC was both a quasi-symbolic act and the beginning of a program. Just as the denunciation of Belaunde's Act of Talara, which gave huge advantages to the IPC in return for the recovery by Peru of a declining oil well, had set off the

coup, the expropriation asserted the authority of the Peruvian state over foreign economic interests. At the same time, the reinforcement of the state through the resolution of an old conflict legitimized the actions of the military in the eyes of the public. While it was easy to obtain the unity of the army on that theme, the "patriotic" decision by the junta also disarmed any "democratic" or legalist opposition.

Although the government had announced that the nationalization of the IPC was a special case, the possibility of a conflict with the United States was not removed. However, the specific threat by the government in Washington to apply the Hickenlooper Amendment—which provided for the suspension of economic aid in cases of the expropriation of American goods without adequate compensation—and the possibility of economic pressure (suspension of the sugar quota, reduction of international loans) were viewed with calm by Lima. The Peruvian government also adopted a tough position regarding the extent of its territorial waters. The announcement of the suspension of military aid by the United States in response to interference with American fishing boats produced Peruvian action that made the Nixon government think twice,^[13] since it seems that it did not wish to radicalize the military, with whom Washington counted on being able to cooperate.

The major action of the new regime was the preparation and implementation of the agrarian reform law. The crisis in the countryside that had fed the guerrillas in 1965, the massive exodus from the sierra highlands to Lima, as well as the deficit in food production and the increase in imports fixed the overall direction of a reform that constituted the key element of social change. In Peru the unequal distribution of land and the concentration of landed property, which are not unique to that country,^[14] also became an ethnic question that paralyzed development because of the size of the Indian population. Large masses of peasants who produced and consumed little were left at the margin of the national community. The moderate reformist government of "the architect" Belaunde had not been able to impose an overall land reform program on a conservative congress. The weak "technical" law adopted in 1964 that placed the burden of a limited (and rarely applied) reform on the most archaic sector of

the country (the highlands) was satisfactory for the large landholders, especially those who had modern industrialized plantations on the coast that were exempted. The law had as its purpose the reduction of peasant pressure, but not the modification of the precarious equilibrium of Peruvian society.

The principal characteristic of the agrarian reform adopted by the military government was its universal application. In fact, it affected the large cotton and sugar plantations, which were left intact but transformed into cooperatives that also included related industries. Still, it was not a revolutionary reform. Related to the programs of "American presidents and specialized organizations of the United Nations,"^[15] it provided, in line with the recommendations of the Alliance for Progress and the Economic Commission for Latin America of the United Nations (ECLA), for compensation to the former owners. The program had as its limited objectives: (1) to defend the small and medium-sized property holders; (2) to develop cooperatives; and (3) to increase production.^[16] Nevertheless, it had considerable economic and social consequences.

It seemed at first that the aim was to reduce the dualism of Peruvian society, which the military felt was excessive, and to make it more fluid by destroying the property bases of the great families of the oligarchy. Certainly, that essentially coastal oligarchy had all the elements of a modern capitalist elite, and its interests were not limited to agriculture, or export, but included large areas of finance, commerce, and industry. The extraordinary concentration in landholding and the congenital interpenetration of foreign interests and the holdings of the oligarchy appeared to the military in power as an obstacle to a program of national development. Thus the expropriation of the coastal plantations was a first step in weakening and "nationalizing" a dominant economic group that controlled public affairs and the development of the society.

An increase in production through the elimination of archaic social relationships in the highlands and the reinvestment of the profits of agricultural enterprises was one of the main thrusts of that voluntarist reform that left no room for spontaneous peasant demands. Thus, in order to overcome the social and cultural heterogeneity of the Andean Indian sectors, Agri-

cultural Societies of Social Interest (SAIS) were created in the highlands that allowed the indigenous communities to participate in structural transformations, while maintaining the productivity of the large holdings that most often were based on lands from which the comuneros had been expelled. These groups that linked the expropriated haciendas and the communities cleverly allowed the former workers and sharecroppers, aided by technicians, to be grouped with the Indians, who received incomes from the SAIS but did not recover their lands. Similarly, in the large cooperatives on the coast, "cooperativization" did not mean absolute self-management. The important role of the state representatives, the attempts to weaken the former unions,^[17] and the underrepresentation of the largest and less well off categories were measures designed to prevent an exclusive concern with immediate social satisfaction.

The text of the law specifically emphasized in the case of the coastal plantations the "inalterability of the structures of production" and "administrative continuity."^[18] While sodal justice was listed first in the introduction to the reform law, and the official slogan, "Peasant, the boss will no longer live from your poverty," recalled the Tupac Amaru Indian revolt of the eighteenth century, the transformation of agriculture was actually directed at "forming a large internal market."^[19] That is why very few of the holdings were divided: the individual beneficiaries of the reform were only a tiny minority (around 10 percent). Furthermore, the desire not to destroy the agrarian economy while giving special attention to sodal considerations and responding to the land hunger of the most backward peasants led to the creation of a large bureaucracy in the cooperative sector which, certain studies claim, was the principal beneficiary of the reform.^[20] In any case some 10 million hectares and more than 350,000 families, or 2 million persons out of the 6 million in the rural population, were affected by the reform.

Above all, however, that reform was an effort at "economic rationalization" that was to provide, among other things, "the necessary capital for the rapid industrialization of the country."^[21] The expropriated landowners could, under certain conditions that were rather advantageous, convert the bonds given in compensation into shares in industry.^[22] Perhaps there was a

desire here to convert an agriculturally based oligarchy that was oriented toward the exterior and hesitant to invest, into a genuine industrial bourgeoisie. In any case the financial transfer was organized, as noted above, in such a way that in the last analysis the agricultural workers who were the "beneficiaries" of the agrarian reform were supposed to finance new industries with the payment on the compensation bonds, and the Indians of the highlands were to support the dynamism of the coast.

A whole series of measures by the military government involving the extension of the public sector was aimed in the same direction. The nationalization of the export trade in certain products that were principal sources of foreign exchange such as iron ore and fishmeal,^[23] as well as the banking reform that limited the share of foreign capital after the state bought out the large commercial banks, were aimed at channeling national savings into productive investment while avoiding the temptations of overseas tax havens. We can ask if the creation through the General Industrial Law of a mechanism of association of capital and labor—which was applauded by the Peruvian Communist party as a "limitation on capitalist property"^[24] and violently denounced by all the employer confederations as collectivist—did not tend to link to the goal of "social harmony" through worker involvement a continuing requirement of self-financing that would act as an additional guarantee against "denationalization." That clause mandating worker participation called in effect for the employer to turn over 15 percent of annual profits to the "industrial community" to which the wage earners belonged, and these funds were to be reinvested in the enterprise up to a limit of 50 percent of its capital.

The extension of the public sector, the increased role of the state in promoting development by (among other things) the creation of a national development bank,^[25] the preference given to collective forms of agrarian organization, the creation (late and after much controversy, it is true) of a sector of self-managed "social property,"^[26] did not mean, however, that the strategy of the Peruvian military regime was anticapitalist. Thus the Industrial Law, while providing for state control of basic industries, heavy chemicals, and steel, left a large area to the private sector, while foreign capital, although subject to strict regulation in in-

dustry notwithstanding certain advantages, was invited to invest preferentially in the mining sector.^[27]

The ambiguity of the revolutionary government which, while proclaiming its intention to limit foreign economic dependence invited foreign capital to develop the natural resources of the country, has been pointed out. In fact, in 1969 the junta imposed a strict development calendar and a list of specific obligations that the foreign companies were required to honor under penalty of losing their rights. Many large companies returned their undeveloped concessions to the state at that time. In 1973 Peru nationalized the powerful copper company, Cerro de Pasco, a symbol of neocolonialism that engaged in practices that were not compatible with the economic and social concerns of the government, and had ceased to invest in 1968. Nevertheless, the rich copper mine of Cuajone was developed by an affiliate of American Smelting that planned a considerable investment ($ 620 million). Also, departing from the example of Talara and the IPC, the military government, while it gave the national oil company a legal monopoly on production, signed a number of contracts with foreign companies, especially in Amazonia. These arrangements, however, involved very strict risk and deadline conditions. There is no doubt that the military government, despite strong criticism from its "anti-imperialist" supporters on the left, believed that it was possible to make good use of foreign capital provided that it was subject to conditions imposed by a strong state determined to defend the national interest. From their productionist point of view, the main consideration was strengthening the country's economic potential and the state, which for the "revolutionaries" in uniform were the sole guarantees of national independence.

The Peruvian model, which only lasted until the fall of General Velasco Alvarado at the end of 1975,^[28] was very difficult for observers to understand. This was especially true since, while the national business groups and the bourgeoisie were fiercely opposed to a strategy of development that spoke in deprecating terms of the "relative importance" of the private sector^[29] and imposed an unacceptable system of worker comanagement on it, the international financiers were rather favorable to the model. Its prudent fiscal policy and restraint of

wages in order to fight inflation seemed to them a good sign, as did the absence of a collectivist ideology and the pragmatism of the military.^[30]

While Marxists refused to use the term "socialist" and preferred to speak of "corporatism of the left" or "Neo-Bismarckism," the more serious studies seemed to lack a way to classify this attempt at a third economic approach and its experiments at "self-management in uniform."^[31] The search for causes and origins of that "revolution," which was not "foreseen in any text,"^[32] led to much writing and created a considerable mythology that the civilian ideologues of the regime were happy to spread. If we limit ourselves to the explanations that concentrate on the emergence of a "new military mentality in Peru,"^[33] leaving aside imaginary instrumentalist approaches, the large number of factors discussed is surprising. In fact none is persuasive and all present a part of the truth. The following have been proposed: the lower-class origins of the Peruvian officers and their social isolation from the upper classes;^[34] the military's more profound understanding of the reality of the nation; the impact of the guerrilla movement that they had to repress in 1965 and the awakening of a new social sensitivity;^[35] the movement to the right of their hereditary enemy, the APRA populist party, which ended the alliance of the military with the oligarchy;^[36] and finally, the influence of the Center for Advanced Military Studies (CAEM), in which the officers since 1951 had studied the nation and in which economics and sociology were taught, have often been presented as decisive.^[37]

However, each of these explanations taken by itself is ambiguous since it could also just as well have made the leaders of the Peruvian army incline in the direction of a vigilant defense of the status quo. The sodal origins of the Peruvian military had not changed for the half century before 1968 during which the military appeared to act as "the watch dogs of the oligarchy" and the Chilean officers were no less cut off from the civilian elites than their neighbors to the north. The assignment of garrisons throughout the whole of the territory and the direct contact as a result of conscription with the lower-class elements were also characteristics that were common to the armies of Argentina, Brazil, and Chile. The "traumatism resulting from

guerrilla warfare" generally orients military attitudes in a counterrevolutionary and antireformist direction. The traces of an Aprista influence on the ideology of the military and the good relations of certain leaders of the process with the leaders of the APRA refute an interpretation based on a dialectical evolution between related enemies.^[38]

As for the CAEM, it is a good idea to minimize its role. First of all, none of the leaders of the revolution—Colonels Leonidas Rodríguez, Jorge Fernández Maldonado, Enrique Gallegos, and Rafael Hoyos Rubio—went to the CAEM, but all went to the School of Information and Intelligence Services.^[39] General Velasco Alvarado was not an alumnus of the School of Advanced Military Studies, and none of the members of the initial revolutionary group had participated actively in the struggle against the guerrillas. Finally, we should understand that the study of the national policy is not carried out only in Lima. Similar institutions exist in Rio de Janeiro and Buenos Aires, and their progressive influence seems rather slight. It was only because of the presence among the civilian professors and collaborators of certain radical intellectuals that that institution was able to play a decisive role in the opening of the military to the problems of dependence and social development. The content of the education is not the key. It is necessary to explain why the experts of the Economic Commission for Latin America, Father Lebret of Economie et Humanisme, and leftist sociologists and technocrats returning from Israel and Yugoslavia were invited to teach at the CAEM. Thus, we have the eternal problem of the chicken and the egg.

On the other hand, that bundle of apparently disparate factors cannot be isolated from the specific functions of the military and internal political mechanisms related to the work of the armed forces. The military role is the result of a special international and domestic combination of forces. The doctrine of "internal security" arose out of the concern of the CAEM with the preparation of national defense of the nation that placed the struggle against underdevelopment and poverty and the "attainment of optimal social well-being" in the first rank of the objectives of the military. As General Marin, creator of the CAEM, put it very clearly, "It is necessary to give Peruvians

something worth defending."^[40] The activist officers who took power in 1968 because of the political deadlock were convinced of that. However, they were only a minority. By erecting an institutional facade over their action, they succeeded for a time in involving the whole of the armed forces behind them.

Bolivia—from Nationalist Opportunism to Lyrical Illusion

The Peruvian model seems to have influenced the neighboring "tin republic" of Bolivia. The reorganized army taught by an American mission to fight against guerrilla threats after its quasi-dissolution in 1952 had been in power since 1964. General René Barrientos, who was president, opened the country to foreign penetration and in the name of the struggle against communism violently repressed the demands of the workers. This army was especially noted for wiping out, with the aid of "American advisers," the guerrilla center of Ñancahuazú where Ernesto Guevara died. After the accidental death of Barrientos, General Ovando, the commander in chief and patient supporter of the general-president, took power in a coup d'état. On his arrival in the Palacio Quemado, he adopted a Revolutionary Mandate of the Armed Forces, signed by the chiefs of the three branches. Its eighteen points formed a whole that was clearly nationalist in inspiration although there were certain concessions to the armed forces' antisubversive and repressive concerns that were not present in the Peruvian revolutionary texts.

Ovando, the official candidate to succeed Barrientos, let it be known that he wished to avoid the inconveniences of a genuine electoral competition. Nevertheless, he had already campaigned before the coup d'état on a program of "national economic liberation" and "accelerated industrialization." He denounced the betrayal of the 1952 revolution (but what military man had not?) and the surrender of the riches of the nation to foreign interests^[41] —which was more interesting. Was he trying to separate himself from his predecessor so as to make people forget his recent past? For Domitila and the miners of the Siglo XX mine, which was occupied by the military on the orders of

the Barrientos-Ovando tandem, he had put on a disguise as "a man of the left," which fooled no one.^[42]

However, the ambitions of the indecisive General Ovando were not the only factors. The army was exceedingly unpopular. "We did not dare to take the bus," General Torres, the successor to Ovando, is supposed to have told his peers to justify his reform. Faced with the possibility of another 9 April, that is, a civilian explosion that would destroy the army as in 1952, the strategy of seduction replaced strongarm methods. The movement to the left was accepted by the officers in order to defend an institution that was divided between a "nationalist" wing around General Torres and a sector that was more concerned with order and the struggle against subversion, which was headed by General R. Miranda.

In practice, the accomplishments of the "nationalist revolutionary" government of Ovando were slight. Caught in a paralyzing set of contradictions, he was only to last until the right-wing coup d'état of 4 October 1970, and could not fulfill the promises of the "mandate of the armed forces." This program called for the recovery of natural resources, the establishment of refineries for the iron ore of the nation, the creation of heavy industry, an independent foreign policy, and the participation of workers in the profits of private enterprises. Nevertheless, the two first actions taken by the government were impressive, both of them modeled on the initial decisions of the Peruvian junta. The abrogation of the petroleum code—written in 1955 by American experts Davenport and Evans—that repealed the nationalist laws of 1937 and encouraged foreign investment, was a response to the expectations of an important group of civilian and military men. Surrounded by anti-Barrientos ministers who were intransigent nationalists such as Marcel Quiroga Santa Cruz, Alberto Bailey, and Jose Ortiz Mercado, General Ovando decreed the nationalization of Bolivian Gulf Oil Company on 17 October 1969; this action gave him the unexpected support of the Bolivian Workers Central Federation (COB), the bete noire of the military during the Barrientos years. In the social arena, the Ovando government ended the military occupation of the mining areas and reestablished trade union freedom.

Four days after the fall of Ovando, on 4 October 1970 a

countercoup d'état took place, led by General Torres with the support of the civilians in the Union of Popular Forces made up of unions, the leftist parties, and the students. That civilian support was an indication of the weakness of the left wing of the army. However, in contrast to Ovando, Torres, isolated and deprived of military support, was able to become very popular with the miners and the urban lower classes thanks to a series of long-awaited measures. He expelled the Peace Corps, nationalized the Mathilde zinc mines that had been privatized to the disadvantage of the country, and above all satisfied the main demand of the miners—the raising of salaries that had been cut by 40 percent under Barrientos. Although Torres was a "fortunate accident" for the Bolivian left, in the process of working with these "allies" he signed a suicide pact that precipitated his fall that was already predictable in January 1970.^[43] The Marxist parties and the unions decided to create a Popular Assembly that Torres, with some reluctance, recognized. While the president with some difficulty restrained his adversaries within the army, the Popular Assembly established a system of "dual power" and made a chamber revolution in an orgy of neo-Leninist lyricism. Those "fireworks of the infantile left,"^[44] to use the words of Augusto Cespedes, sacrificed Torres, without whom nothing could have been possible, on the altar of revolutionary orthodoxy. The coup de grace awaited by the right wing of the military was a manifesto of the noncommissioned officers, which some considered to be a provocation or a gross mistake, demanding the "immediate democratization of the military hierarchy." On 21 August 1971 Colonel Hugo Banzer, who had made an earlier attempt on 10 January that had been defeated, overthrew Torres and took power.

Panama and the Reconquest of Sovereignty

In Panama, whose relatively recent political emancipation from Colombia had left it with a colonial enclave of an interoceanic canal wholly controlled by the United States, the nationalist orientation of the national guard government that emerged from

the coup d'état of 8 October 1968 was another "happy surprise." In fact, in addition to the strategic position of Panama in the defense plans of Washington, the Panamanian national guard seemed less likely to defend national independence than any other military force in Latin America. That police force, most of whose members had been trained by American instructors in the Canal Zone, seemed to have very little authority in relation to the desires of the Southern Command.

In addition, at first glance the October coup d'état that overthrew President-elect Arnulfo Arias a few days before his inauguration was only one more episode in the struggle of the family clans that, in the absence of strong middle-class groups or of an organized public opinion, took the place of an official political life before 1968. Arias, who had been president twice before (1940 and 1949) had already been overthrown twice by the national police, who accused him of gaining his support from the poorest classes by promising demagogic reforms and preaching an aggressively xenophobic Panameñista nationalism.^[45] In addition, while the United States maintained an attitude of prudent neutrality, the meaning of the 1968 coup d'état did not seem to be in doubt. Nevertheless, everyone expected a government that would cooperate in a friendly way with the "protecting" power as had the government of Colonel Rem6n in 1950s. However, after many reversals, internal crises, and a period of repression of the unions and parties of the left, the junta, under the strong influence of General Omar Torrijos, the commander of the Guard, adopted an instransigent attitude toward the United States beginning in February 1969. Thus the new government rejected the American request for an extension of the lease on the air base of Rio Hato, and denounced three projected treaties relating to a future sea-level canal, the management of the present canal, and military cooperation. Finally, once the predominance of General Torrijos was assured, the new government demonstrated a very pronounced nationalism.

This policy took several forms. Some of them were symbolic, such as the expulsion of the Peace Corps in 1971, or social, such as the recognition of the labor unions in the banana plantations that belonged to American companies and the support given to them in their conflicts with the foreign employers.

Others were economic, as in the case of the nationalization of the principal gas and electric company in 1972. Social justice was also one of the objectives of the government that proclaimed that the revolution was "for the dispossessed, not for the propertied."^[46] New labor legislation protected the unions, established a minimum wage, provided for collective bargaining, and fixed the severance pay and working conditions of workers and domestics.^[47] A social housing program financed by local savings was designed to improve the living conditions of the people.

In the countryside, Torres promulgated a gradual agrarian reform that provided for the progressive and nonradical takeover of unproductive latifundia and of a great part of foreign landholdings. A cooperative sector was created alongside the state enterprises operating in the area of agricultural products for export (bananas, sugar).^[48] The government-controlled National Peasant Confederation (CNC) established under the aegis of the new regime received the political benefits of these changes.

As in the case of other military revolutions, the Torrijos regime sought neither coherence nor purity in its ideology. It flirted with Cuba and renewed diplomatic relations with Castro and a number of socialist countries. Panama supported Salvador Allende and the Peruvian military "revolution," with which the members of the national guard in power maintained close relations. General Torrijos became involved very early in direct aid to the Sandinista guerrillas with a view to overthrowing the dictatorship of Somoza. The government of the National Guard was always on the side of the anti-imperialist forces in Latin America.

However, at the same time profiting from the free market in dollars in Panama, the military regime transformed the country into a banking haven, thanks to an ultraliberal law on the deposit and circulation of funds. By guaranteeing the secrecy of these operations, exempting the movement of capital to and from foreign countries from taxation, and freeing transfers from regulation, Panama attracted banks and deposits. The number of banks tripled between 1962 and 1967, and Panama became ranked in first place in Latin America,^[49] replacing Nassau and

the Bahamas. In return for this liberal legislation, the foreign banks made low-interest long-term loans to the government. While the bourgeoisie engaged in plotting and sought a confrontation with the government—such as the case in the province of Chiriquí in 1973 where the pressure of the large landholders resulted in the resignation of a Communist governor^[50] —the international financial community supported General Torrijos. The United States tried to weaken him by making accusations of drug trafficking against his brother when it was not able to overthrow him through his colonels in December 1969,^[51] but it remained very cautious in the face of a regime and a man who had retained many bargaining chips.

In fact, the principal objective of the Panamanian government, which was seen as essential and justified its existence, was the recovery of the canal and the reassertion of sovereignty over the zone occupied by the United States. For that purpose Torrijos established a national front involving all social classes. That is why the strongman of Panama did not want to be identified with the left or the right and claimed that in the interests of the country he was "working with both hands," involving employers and workers, large landholders and peasants, in the struggle for the canal. An agreement among the classes was a consequence of the effort to achieve the national cooperation necessary to the great patriotic design. The canal was the key to the foreign policy of the regime. In 1977 at the end of long and difficult negotiations an agreement was reached with Washington for a new treaty that provided for the complete recovery of the canal in the year 2000 and the evacuation of the Canal Zone. Both sides made concessions, but the sovereignty of Panama was recognized and its material interests consolidated. Did this agreement mark the end of the Torrijos era and his program of nationalist mobilization? In any case, he gave up power in 1978 to a civilian president chosen at his direction and supported by a party that claimed to be carrying out his program, and he kept the post of commander of the Guard.

We may ask whether with Torrijos from 1969 until 1978, or even until 1981, the date of his accidental death, we still had a militarily dominated regime. Torrijos had many of the traits of a more enlightened traditional caudillo—the desire for unanimity

and for personal contact, appearances in various parts of the country, physical courage, prudence, and audacity combined with a good-natured machismo that completes the picture. He was not simply the most senior person in the highest rank or the officer who happened to be at the top of the organizational chart. Both head of the Guard and head of government, Torrijos popularized that confusion of powers and the constitution recognized it when it stipulated, "Brigadier General Omar Torrijos Herrera, commander in chief of the National Guard, is recognized as the principal leader of the revolution."^[52] Nevertheless, it was from the Guard that the lider maximo drew his power. With a disparate official party made up of businessmen and Marxist intellectuals that was only unified by Torrijos, all observers agree that after the death of the founding hero the future of the regime was once again in the hands of the officers.^[53]

Authoritarian Reformism and Petroleum in Ecuador

Without attempting to cover all the more or less abortive attempts at "radical praetorianism" our panorama would be incomplete without studying Ecuador, the only petroleum-exporting state in which, between 1972 and 1976, an experiment in military reformism appeared that seemed to be a somewhat pale reflection of the Peruvian "process."

The coup d'état of February 1972 that appeared very institutional in character coincided with the petroleum boom. The commanders in chief of the three branches deposed the aging and picturesque President Velasco Ibarra, who was serving his fifth term, having taken over full power in 1970 in opposition to the pressures of the businessmen of Guayaquil. When the petroleum bonanza opened a period of prosperity, the military did not want just anyone to profit from the windfall. Specifically, they wished to prevent the likely victory in the June 1972 elections of the mayor of Guayaquil, who was a demagogue close to the export sector.

The new government under the presidency of General Rodríguez Lara proclaimed itself "revolutionary, nationalist, so-

cial-humanist, and in favor of autonomous development."^[54] It subscribed to a number of objectives: a better distribution of income, the fight against unemployment, an agrarian reform, and a fiscal reform. It published an Integral Plan for transformation and development for 1973–77 that called for an acceleration of development and the strengthening of the public sector. The nationalist character of the new government was not in doubt: it was demonstrated by the intransigent defense of the maritime sovereignty of the country over a 200-mile zone against the California tuna fishers—as well as by its international policy, especially with reference to Cuba. The military were most active and decisive in the domain of petroleum. In 1972 General Rodríguez Lara created the Corporatión Estatal Petrolera Ecuadoriana (CEPE) to control the development of the recently discovered petroleum. The CEPE owned 25 percent of the shares of a consortium that also included Gulf and Texaco. It bought all of Gulf's shares and a part of those of Texaco.^[55] The state thus controlled about 80 percent of the shares in the petroleum industry. Then the government decided to revise all the contracts and concessions belonging to foreign companies—which was not likely to take place without problems, especially when Ecuador, having become the fourth largest petroleum exporter in the continent, entered OPEC against the wishes of the United States, resulting in the suspension of U.S. military aid. A new refinery was created at Esmeraldas, as well as a network of pipelines that made up for the inadequacy of the highway network. Petrochemical projects were created. Thanks to the intervention of the state, Ecuador under the military intended to make the best possible use of its petroleum.

In 1974 hydrocarbons comprised 60 percent of the total exports and for the first time in Ecuadorian history the most important natural resource was essentially controlled by the state. The economic growth that resulted from the stimulus of petroleum reached impressive rates (13 percent in 1974) and the transfer of the profits to the private sector permitted strong industrial growth. A restructuring of the agrarian sector was also made possible by the new revenues and the military's desire for change. The transformation and development plan called for "an acceleration in the elimination of poverty by

breaking with the traditional agrarian structure, the increase in the domestic supply of food products, and the stimulation of the expansion of agro-pastoral exports."^[56] The implementation of the agrarian reform law of October 1973 produced significant results. Wage labor became generalized while the unpaid or forced labor that was traditional in the Andes disappeared. Sharecropping was practically abolished. The number of large landholdings and their size declined, and medium and small property holdings increased. That cautious reform failed, however, to accelerate the establishment of cooperatives, while the lack of change in the availability of land and in social domination limited the expansion of the market.

In fact, the accomplishments of the regime were very far from its change-oriented rhetoric. Also, while the petroleum wealth made it possible to improve somewhat the inadequate highway system and thus to unify a national territory that had been fragmented because of the Andean mountain chain, it did not transform the country.

Ecuador adopted a stockholder mentality. Beginning in 1972 imports of luxury products increased at an annual rate of 60 percent.^[57] The bureaucracy grew. Speculation enriched a "new class," of which the military were a significant part. But proven reserves were limited and it seemed possible that Ecuadorian petroleum would be exhausted by 1990. The internal consumption of petroleum products that was subsidized by the government because of pressure from the road transport lobby (high-test gasoline at 20 cents a gallon in 1979!) increased at a wild rate. Furthermore, Ecuador was in danger of becoming the first OPEC country to become a net importer of petroleum. Boycotted by the oil cartel, hampered by technical problems, production and exports dropped beginning in 1975. General Rodríguez Lara tried to limit imports in order to improve the financial situation: the importers in Guayaquil who protested against the revaluation of the sucre (the Ecuadorian currency) initiated major maneuvers against the "progressive" military, accusing them of communism. While the unions initiated very bitter strikes in order to secure wage increases, the business interests and the parties of the right attempted to involve a part of the army in a coup d'état at the time of the "uprising" of 1

September 1975. On 11 January 1976, General Rodríguez was removed by the three commanders in chief, who announced their intention to return power to the civilians. The "nationalist revolution" was over.

Reforms from Above

The different experiments in military reformism that we have just described have the same political style in common. These regimes are not very repressive; they do not persecute the parties and the labor unions. Most of the time they do not prohibit them. They often have the support of some of the parties of the left, but they remain authoritarian. The regimes began with a coup d'état. This "original sin" of the military affects everything that they do, for conspiracy and surprise are at the opposite end of the spectrum from social progress. Plotters, far from mobilizing politically the social forces interested in change, exclude or ignore them. From the outset radical praetorianism appears like enlightened despotism: everything for the people, nothing by the people. By giving power to a bureaucratic elite, military intervention helps to isolate the state. The popular support that is indispensable for social change and the carrying out of a radical experiment remain to be secured.

The leaders of the progressive military regimes in Latin America have an ambiguous and hesitant attitude toward popular participation. With the exception of Panama, which succeeded in demilitarizing itself, they refused to make use of the support developed as a result of the reforms that they promoted by giving it ways to express itself. On the contrary, they had a tendency to keep the dominated groups that benefited from the regime demobilized. The introduction of the people into the political sphere was not appreciated at the upper levels of the state. Military men in power distrust the spontaneity of the masses and sometimes express their hostility to the autonomy of popular organizations through strong measures. At best because they are conscious of the danger of a sodal vacuum the revolutionary soldiers of Latin America reluctantly admit a certain kind of conformist mobilization that is strictly controlled, if

not manipulated, by the state, and is specifically oriented rather than institutionalized.

In Peru, the regime of General Velasco Alvarado was marked by its paternalism. The people were asked to remain as spectators of reforms that would benefit them. It was a matter of "humanizing society by decree.'^[58] A strange combination of self-management and authoritarianism emerged as a result of an "antipolitical" concept of participation that was exemplified by General Alvarado's continual rejection of the possibility of creating a party of the Peruvian revolution. "There is nothing inevitable about forming a party. It is not imperative," he said in an interview.

The essential meaning of participation is incompatible with that of an institutionalized party. A political party is an instrument for the manipulation and concentration of power, and not a mechanism directed at transferring power. Since our revolution aims at initiating a process of the transfer of political power and economic power to social organizations at the base—as the supporters of a new conception of the state and the foundation of fully participatory social democracy which we are going to construct in Peru—our essential goal is in fundamental contradiction with the meaning and purpose of political parties which is by definition to monopolize power and to exercise it through their bureaucracy in the name of the people. . . . In addition a political party would inevitably lead to the fragmentation and division of the popular sectors to which our revolution is addressed.^[59]

Having said this, we should add that when we examine the implementation of that program of liberation we perceive that the participation in question is limited at best to the immediate environment of the citizen, to his workplace or residential area, but excludes the system of national decision making that remains the monopoly of the military.^[60] In addition, in order to protect the people against "imported ideologies," the military government offers "to orient the development of the associations while preventing them from being manipulated by minorities or groups whose interests would be foreign to theirs."^[61] In practice, the distrustful and even hostile attitude of the government toward the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution

that were created quasi-spontaneously in 1969 after the adoption of the agrarian reform, confirms that the military government would only allow a mobilization that it stimulated and controlled. The creation of a bureaucratic agency for that purpose in 1971 reinforces this. Named The National System of Support for Social Mobilization (SINAMOS), it never passed the stage of an office of social manipulation aimed at weakening the Marxist-controlled unions, and its history is marked by more failures than successes.

Furthermore, the technical approach to participation that is expressed by the term, "system," was aimed more at demobilizing than at mobilizing. This "indigenous Peace Corps," with its seven thousand preacher-bureaucrats was not a party even though it was the only political arm of the revolution. According to those who established it, it was supposed to wither away as power was transferred to the social organizations.^[62] However, rather than acting in accordance with the play on words implicit in its title (sin amos in Spanish means "without masters") the SINAMOS was under the tight control of the military, and this disturbed the leftist intellectuals who were promoting it. All its regional directorates were led by the local military unit heads. As one of the (civilian) creators of the "system" remarked, the logic of the military and participation do not get along well together. The contradiction between the model of society that was proposed and the desire for control by the state is obvious. One of the military heads of SINAMOS declared that it was a "school for participation."^[63] From there to treating the citizens as pupils or conscripts is only a small step.

Not all bureaucratic authoritarian regimes are conservative. But the exclusiveness of the military also affects reformers in uniform. A culture of nonparticipation dominates military society, the norms of which are based on perception and command. The professionals in a "wholly simple art of execution," attempting to govern a country in the same way that they command a regiment, continue to exhibit a voluntaristic attitude. Also, the more the army is state oriented and professionalized, the more these traits are reinforced, as is evident in a comparison of Peru and Panama, or Ecuador and Bolivia. Mistrust of a populace divided by conflicting interests leads to an overestima-

of the institution to which the officers belong. Organization men before becoming politicians, for them institutional values come first. In addition social change can only be related to defense in a very indirect way. While the conservative military unhesitatingly eliminate their internal adversaries, radical praetorians are concerned about the defense of corporate unity. Perhaps this is also because they are generally in the minority.

Thus Torres in Bolivia did not give in to the urgings of his civilian allies to arm them and to purge the officer corps. The army is not a party. Esprit de corps overcomes ideological choices. In El Salvador one of the explanations of the defeat of the "young Turks" who overthrew General Carlos Romero in 1979 with the specific purpose of preventing the Salvadoran military institution from meeting the same fate as the Nicaraguan national guard, was their refusal to touch the army. While the junta adopted reforms and reached out to the guerrillas in order to pacify the country, the officers who belonged to the extreme right unleashed the terror against the civilian left and buried the hopes for an agreement. The unit chiefs undid at night what the junta decided by day, thus pushing the country into civil war. The young reformist captains and colonels would soon be removed from the army, indeed in some cases assassinated. In Peru the institutional element in the October coup concealed the internal struggles and the minority character of the intervention against President Belaunde. The progressive colonels who brought along with them the chief of the interservice general staff, General Velasco Alvarado, could make use of the resources of hierarchical obedience in order to coopt the mass of indifferent officers. However, few of the officers of the three branches agreed with the change and the revolutionary nationalists in Lima governed through generals who were hostile to the process, conservative ministers, and an active military extreme right. In addition, very soon the promotion pattern turned against them. Ideological unity is not the main force in armies.

In the list of abortive revolutions there is no doubt that those led by the military would rank at the top, as we have just seen. The progressive experiments carried out by the army turn out to be short-lived when they are not transformed into ex-

counterrevolutions. Sudden reversals, unexpected swings of the pendulum, and 180 degree turns seem to be characteristic of the military in power. Bolivia, Ecuador, and Peru demonstrate that. However, perhaps we have taken the "verbal socialism" of the radical praetorians too literally. Does not military reformism such as that in Peru and Panama attempt to use the state apparatus and nationalist dynamic nationalism to achieve a cohesion and a synthesis of contradictory interests? And does not the military and authoritarian style prevail over their progressive goals? Those "revolutionaries" really only seek to recentralize the state and to centralize decision making by strengthening the state in order to assure that it can act as arbiter. It is tempting to eliminate the main emphasis of those "centralizing revolutions" and to group them with the military counterrevolutions since their motives and causes are the same. But how could it be otherwise?

Military Mechanisms and International Economics

Nevertheless, it is undeniable that there exist or have existed in nearly all state armies of the subcontinent currents and tendencies that are anti-imperialist and reformist. It is not surprising that among patriots by profession in countries that are dependent or semicolonial all the varieties of nationalism would be represented. Nor is it surprising that in an appropriate situation preparation for war should turn into a concern for the welfare of the populace and the morale of the troops, and for national unity and social cohesion as well as the autonomy of the defensive apparatus. However, whatever the words of these officers, they remain professional military men and it would be wrong to believe, except in a specific case, that a leftist officer is really completely a man of the left. The workers' parties in Bolivia found this out at their own expense during the brief presidency of Torres.

The changes in political attitude of the Latin American military, however, are not the result of cynical opportunism or of an adjustment everywhere and always to the "needs" of large capi-

tal. National military traditions have an effect on the original character of radical praetorianism and perhaps facilitate its recurrence. In Bolivia the political tradition of the Chaco War, which is reformist and antioligarchic and has elements of xenophobia, is piously preserved within the army. It limits antimilitarist reflexes on the part of the civilian population and awakens among certain officers a nostalgia for a reliable alliance between the army and the miners and peasants. The Chaco War (1932–35), in which the Bolivian army was beaten by Paraguay, still affects the fraternal and heroic aspirations of nationalist officers. Equality and the discovery of one another by the social classes, and social mingling on the field of battle, have had much to do with the formation of national consciousness.^[64] It was the veterans and the reserve officers of the Chaco who founded the National Revolutionary Movement that ended the oligarchic regime in 1952, with the humiliation of the defeat even affecting officers who had not personally experienced it.^[65] In May 1936 it was also junior officers who were unhappy with the conditions of the armistice that had ended that bloody and useless war who seized power from the traditional politicians, whom they considered incompetent and corrupt, with the intention of carrying out reforms and fighting against the control by foreign interests, especially those in petroleum, whom they felt had decisive responsibility for the 1932 conflict. Colonels David Toro and Germán Busch were successive leaders of a nationalist authoritarian regime from 1936 to 1939. In addition, from 1943 to 1946 Commander Gualberto Villaroel in quasi-fascist style tried to mobilize the masses with a program of basic social reforms that directly threatened the large mining companies and the landholder interests. A "popular" insurrection in La Paz ended the military-nationalistic regime by assassinating the president, to the considerable satisfaction of the democratic "tin barons." Villaroel joined Busch who had tragically disappeared in 1939 in the pantheon of martyrs of national independence.

Certainly the tradition of the Chaco and of the three nationalist military heros became an obligatory reference for all generals who wished to carry out a coup. General Barrientos mentioned them, as did the Machiavellian Banzer in 1971, or the generals of the "cocainocracy" who were associated with Gen-

eral Garcia Meza after 1978. In the name of the same spirit more conservative generals since Barrientos have signed strange and solemn "pacts" with the peasants who are concerned to preserve the plots of land given to them as a result of the agrarian reform and are upset by the propaganda of the left parties and the radicalism of the miners. It is also true that the gap between the actual role played by the Bolivian army and that cult of "patriotism" has created a malaise in the ranks of the military. In 1969 many officers had difficulty in choosing between the army of the Chaco and the army of Ñancahuazú and were not happy to see their unpopularity increase. When General Ovando announced the nationalization of Bolivian Gulf Oil, he recalled that as a result of that revolutionary decision, "The blood poured out on the sands of the Chaco had not been shed in vain.^[66]

In El Salvador the reformist activism of the young military ending a long series of counterrevolutionary dictatorships that had been unable to control institutionalized terrorism, was not without precedent. In 1948 a group of young officers revolted against the successor of the sorcerer-president Hernández Martínez, established a junta, and had a constitutional assembly adopt a progressive constitution. The 1950 elections brought Oscar Osorio, "the people's colonel," to the presidency and his government cautiously put into effect certain reforms announced earlier: social security was created and the unionization of labor promoted. However, partly because of the crisis in coffee prices, the six-year term of Osorio was transformed into a regime that was concerned with order.^[67] The reforms that were promised in the "glorious action of December 14, 1948" seem only to have served to reduce social agitation.^[68] In 1956, through the use of fraud, Colonel José Maria Lemus was elected unopposed as successor to Osorio. In 1959 the drop in the price of coffee and the Cuban revolution led to social agitation that was strongly repressed. On 26 October 1960 Lemus was removed by a coup d'état. A military junta announced bold reforms and the reestablishment of political and union freedom. According to some the new program was simply a move to the left within the framework of the system in order to retain control and to calm agitation. Others said it was Castroism. In January 1961 a civilian-military directorate over-

threw the junta because it felt it was too radical, while insisting that it would continue to carry out the program of the deposed government. The directorate, which was closer to Kennedy than to Castro, wished to modernize the country, increasing the involvement of the state and developing industry within the framework of the Latin American Common Market that had been created by the Treaty of Managua in December 1960. However, the enthusiasm for modernization was soon dampened by the pressure of the agrarian oligarchy, the consequences of the war with Honduras in 1969, and especially by the desire of the military to cling to power by any means.

The cyclical character of these changes appears to be a corporate reversal with the whole hierarchy turning as a bloc, as in a parade. This is not the case. There are always decisive activist minorities that, occasionally at a risk to their careers, succeed in imposing a change of course on the whole military structure. This does not mean that there is unanimity or that the conservative military have become progressives. The image that the Peruvian military government of 1968 succeeded in giving to this process has added to the confusion. The coup d'état appeared to be impeccably institutional. Did not the commanders in chief of the three branches together depose President Belaunde and jointly issue the first revolutionary declarations? In fact, the intervention succeeded because the socialist-oriented colonels were able to win over General Velasco Alvarado, head of the interservice general staff, who was believed to be a conservative but had retained some Gaullist inclinations following his stay in Paris as military attaché. Before the fait accompli, the navy was reticent and the air force uninvolved. The opposing officers were outmaneuvered by the patriotic occupation of the IPC because the nationalist actions of Velasco Alvarado often resulted from purely internal considerations and operated to close the ranks and to neutralize the conservative and liberal military. The rule of hierarchy prevailed. While the radical colonels formed the Advisory Council to the Presidency (COAP) before being appointed to key ministries, General Velasco Alvarado also governed through conservative officers, even those of the extreme right. For eight years, until the victory of the moderates, the

internal struggle of the radicals to overcome or convince their companions in arms was unceasing. This is the reason for the hesitations and the compromises in the reform legislation, and for the confrontations around General Velasco when he became ill beginning in 1973. It was in this way that the "revolutionary" military made an alliance with the "institutionalists" whose leader, General Francisco Morales Bermudez, was to become president in 1975 against the fascist-oriented extreme right represented by the powerful minister of fisheries, General Javier Tantaleán, who had become close to General Velasco. These Byzantine maneuvers were to be fatal to the process and to its "socializing" leaders.

We may ask how a determined minority, even an able one which is able to command the resources of the hierarchy, can coopt or neutralize officers who are not convinced of the benefits of socialism, even of humanist socialism. It is clear that the application of a coherent set of ideas helped to convince them. While the CAEM provided a common language, a flattering and well-wrought military rhetoric was also to result in the adhesion of the more reluctant officers. Is the army the only organization able to carry out the reforms that are necessary for modernization and still the subversive destabilization that takes place in the case of progressive civilian governments? It may be that officers subjected to psychological warfare and patriotic rhetoric are more likely to accede to the idea that it is possible to make use of the dynamic of nationalism to direct and control the masses while at the same time attacking both the causes and the effects of subversion. Does not "Nationalism . . . one of the most powerful propellants for the transition from traditional to modern societies"^[69] allow the nation to avoid the fatal slippage into civil war, while a "revolution from above" effectively replaces counterguerrilla activities?

We must still explain why and when those radical minorities were able to take over. One might suppose that a successful and admired experiment might tempt chronic coup-makers seeking to find new programs. But the domino theory does not apply to Bolivia in 1969, or clearly to General Lopez Arellano in Honduras, or to Ecuador in 1972. Again, it is easy to talk about the specific characteristics of individual nations. The circum-

stances of the period 1968–72 also seem significant to us. The parallel developments that we have described took place in a favorable economic environment. There is no doubt that they would have been impossible without an international climate of détente. The new configuration of forces working in the Western hemisphere permitted the undeniable nationalist thrust that swept the continent and freed the progressive sectors within the national armies.

That hemispheric thaw reflected changes in the local strategy of the two great powers, and more specifically a change of attitude by the two poles in tension, Cuba and the United States. Beginning in 1968 in Cuba there was a period of flexibility. Castro abandoned—temporarily perhaps—his hope of creating "many Vietnams" or establishing a "second Cuba" in Latin America. Under the pressure of serious economic difficulties and on the advice of the USSR he adopted a policy of building "socialism in one country" and "tacit coexistence" with the United States. In addition, the defeat of the bold attempt in Bolivia to build a continental Sierra Maestra that resulted in the death of the best-known guerrilla fighter in October 1967 marked the beginning of Cuban disengagement and symbolized the end of an era. In the United States the election of Richard Nixon to the presidency coincided with the Peruvian coup, and while the U.S. did not forget the existence of a Communist state in the Caribbean, the Vietnamese quagmire and the Middle Eastern crisis overshadowed the less pressing Castroite threat. The "low profile" policy produced an attitude of caution and circumspection with regard to Latin America. The State Department demonstrated a clearly conciliatory attitude to avoid confrontations with the countries to the south, even at times when American economic interests were involved.

Thus, the United States made a prudent adjustment to the nationalist wave sweeping over the South American capitals. Secretary of State William Rogers even declared in January 1970 that "nationalism is a good thing in Latin America" and added, "The fact that the Latin Americans feel responsible for their future and are proud of their countries is a good thing. It is natural that the national pride might express itself at times in the form of anti-Americanism."^[70] The attempts at destabili-

zation of the socialist government of Chile remained, even in their discreet character, isolated from the context of the continent and did not compromise an overall policy. It was not until 1973 that Washington policy toward the Latin American nations began to harden. Up to that time there was a weakening of the tensions produced by Cuba's support for armed revolutionary movements and the counterrevolutionary obsession of the United States.

A relaxation was even perceptible on the level of the armies, which were no longer as obviously mobilized for the struggle against the internal enemy. The main theme of the Eighth Conference of Chiefs of General Staffs of the American armies that was held at Rio de Janeiro in September 1968 was "development." General Westmoreland, who represented the United States and was former commander in chief in Vietnam, made an important speech emphasizing the economic and social aspects of the phenomenon of revolution, and asserting that "action on the social and political front aimed at removing the causes of frustration [is] . . . more decisive than military action properly speaking."^[71]

We should not conclude too rapidly, as extremist guerrilla groups and certain leftist intellectuals did in Peru, Bolivia, and elsewhere, that the "military revolutions" constituted the "new strategy of imperialism." They considered these events as a very clever maneuver of the United States to guarantee at a low price its control of the Latin American countries and as programs of civic action promoted by the Pentagon in order to gain popular support and sympathy for the armies of the continent. It would be an exaggeration to believe that the conflicts that took place between the military revolutions and the United States were fictitious, and that the endorsements of Fidel Castro had the approval of the State Department. However, we can believe that there was a coincidence between the internal desires of some armed forces and what one might call the militarization by the United States of the reform program of the Alliance for Progress and of the recommendations of Punta del Este.

We can apply the same type of analysis to the fragile reformist impulse of the "nonconservative" militarism in El Salva-

dor in 1979 under Jimmy Carter, or earlier in Bolivia in 1978. The human rights policy had replaced the "benign neglect" of Nixon by that time. Thus the desire of the United States to get rid of embarrassing allies allowed the Sandinistas to drive the Somoza dynasty out of Nicaragua. In the same way in El Salvador the corporate interest of the army coincided with the policy of the White House. The same coincidence of interest occurred again under Ronald Reagan a few months later, but in the diametrically opposite direction with the militaries choosing another strategy. From then on the international situation was no longer favorable to progressive adventures.

Neither a historical exception nor a clever ruse by reaction, radical neomilitarism is therefore a phenomenon that is symptomatic of the politicization of the armies. It illustrates the specific mechanisms of praetorianism. In effect, political action can have no other legitimacy within the army and among its leadership than a military one. The army reacts more than it acts. The perception of threats determines its decisions and dictates its strategies, even those that are extramilitary. Nevertheless, the defense of the nation can lead in different directions. The survival and maintenance of the nation as an entity consists above all in increasing the defensive capacity of the country and strengthening its military potential. This can explain everything, from concern with the physical condition of conscripts to the demand for an independent industrial base and the interest demonstrated in the morale of the civilians. This is why these "revolutions" are not the local version of the managerial revolution, as has been said,^[72] but rather flow from a classic conception of "the nation in arms." The officers are not managers or technocrats in uniform, even if their function of controlling territory locates them within a type of state that we must still define. In those "general staff revolutions" their military characters always conditions their revolutionary content.

11—
The Military State and Its Future:
Adventures and Misadventures of Demilitarization

A judgment on the possible future evolution of military-dominated regimes depends on the theories adopted to explain their unprecedented emergence in Latin America. If we view contemporary militarism as a type of culturally produced anachronism that provides temporary resistance to the supreme political good—representative democracy—this will result in a theory of a predictable and practically inevitable unilinear evolution. Structural interpretations of the appearance of modern authoritarian regimes also emphasize their transitory character. Functionalist determinism, by establishing a more or less instrumental correspondence between the dominant economic actors and the type of regime, predicts an end to the authoritarian systems when their supposed "objectives" have been fulfilled. Because of the "inevitable" or indispensable character of the authoritarianisms for peripheral capitalism in the present period, their disappearance is also historically determined. These two contradictory views have in common a fixed dogmatic attitude concerning the "exceptional" character of authoritarian regimes. In effect both those who interpret Latin American history in terms of the "struggle for democracy" and those who view the field of politics as directly subordinated to the needs of capital assume the inevitability of liberalization.

We should note that the supporters of these two theses generally pay little attention to the fact that the great majority of

the Latin American authoritarian regimes are military. The first group does so because they have decided once and for all that armies in politics are a thing of the past. Since the mark of modernization is representative democracy and functional specialization, the obstacles to popular sovereignty are the result of the weight of the traditional past. On these premises there is no attention given to the bureaucratic modernity of professionalized military institutions and the need to discover its relevant effects on politics. "Economistic" views also ignore the military component. Their approach neglects an institution that is at the center of power because it is assumed to be nothing more than the expression or instrument of other socioeconomic forces. In short, its special characteristics and particular processes form a sort of epiphenomenon.

A nonreductionist approach that focuses on the real holders of power in the political systems under military domination while taking into account group differences, alliances, and civilian support, as well as extrainstitutional political resources within a framework of the structural constraints experienced by national societies, cannot accept as predetermined the types of political organizations that will succeed authoritarian regimes. This does not mean that military power will last forever, but that it has a logic of its own. The successive waves of militarization and demilitarization that the continent has experienced since 1945 argue for caution.

In fact, while in 1954 twelve of the twenty republics were governed by military men who had taken power by force, only one remained by the middle of 1961, Stroessner in Paraguay. In seven years, revolution or assassination had ended the rule of ten military presidents, while another in Peru had "retired."^[1] It is true that those generals headed very different regimes, including democracies, and the removal of the leader did not always change the system, as the situation in Nicaragua after the assassination of the rather unmilitary dictator, Somoza, in 1956 demonstrates. Often these systems are only military in terms of the original profession of their president; however, they have evolved in contrasting ways. Should one attribute to an antimilitary movement the deposition of Perón, who had been legally reelected constitutional president in 1951, or those

of the Venezuelan tyrant, Pérez Jiménez, General Magloire in Haiti, or Colonel J. M. Lemus in Salvador, even though it is true that all those military men along with Batista in Cuba and Rojas Pinilla in Colombia were, for the time being at least, indeed the candidates of the military for the presidency? What are we then to say after those changes concerning the military tidal wave that ended civilian regimes in nine countries of the continent between March 1962 (Argentina), November 1964 (Bolivia), and June 1966 (Argentina again)? Furthermore, how are we to situate—as a continuity or a new phenomenon—the series of coups d'état at the beginning of the 1970s that struck countries with solid traditions of civilian government such as Chile and Uruguay, while in Argentina a new military intervention exhibited a violent character that was unheard of in the history of the nation?

Nevertheless, beginning in 1976–77, democracy seems to have been gaining ground. It appears to be time for a liberalization of regimes based on force and a return to civilian government. If we judge only by the figures, in 1978 twelve popular elections took place on the continent. That intense electoral activity seems to indicate that there will be a return of representative procedures. In fact, that figure covers both authoritarian votes and competitive elections or ambiguous maneuvers. The referendum in Chile and the reelection of Stroessner for the sixth time do not seem to indicate—far from it—the end of despotic systems. In Venezuela and Colombia elections that are customary in those model democracies do not constitute anything special. In Brazil the legislative elections took place within the framework of the military system under restrictions and manipulations that were aimed at guaranteeing its continuation in power, but nevertheless they had unfavorable results for the government. However, in Peru, Ecuador, and Bolivia those consultations were aimed at preparing for the return of the civilians to power, the free play of democratic institutions, and an orderly withdrawal of the military to their barracks.

This historical survey does not argue for a single simultaneous interpretation of military rule, as we have explained above. Nor do we believe that these continental movements condemn the states of the subcontinent to an indefinite alterna-

between civilian and military regimes. Rather they indicate that the forms of demilitarization are complex and diversified and that they may have their limits. Recurrences and retreats, rather than confirming a priori generalizations, invite us to examine the realities of demilitarization and therefore the real impact of the militarization of the state. Does it consist in a simple interlude with no institutional consequences after which there is a return to the previous regime once the army is back in the barracks? Or, on the contrary, do the military withdraw only when they believe that they have eliminated the political obstacles to a civilian regime and created the socioeconomic conditions favorable to the normal functioning of democratic institutions? These are questions that we can answer only by looking at what happens after military rule.

Controlled Usurpation

The instability of governments based on force has often been noted. Institutionalized military regimes, even when they appear to be the rule in a country, still remain exceptions, as paradoxical as that may seem. In fact, the dominant official ideology throughout the continent is liberal and pluralistic. The constant changes in military systems and the short duration of noncivilian governments are partly related to their lack of legitimacy, as perceived by those involved. In the cultural and normative context of Latin America those who hold military-based power always know, whatever they may say, that above them there is a higher legitimacy, that of constitutional legality that they may claim to possess, but to which they must finally appeal.^[2] Military regimes are only really legitimized by the future. While elected governments are legitimate because of the way they originate, de facto governments only acquire a legitimacy in exercise, from their performance, so to speak. The past can justify the arrival in power of the military; the customary references to social and political chaos, to the vacuum of power, to threats of all kinds, nevertheless become transformed into objectives to be achieved. Military regimes thus look to the future. They are essentially transitory. Also, a permanent military sys-

tem is a contradiction in terms.^[3] An army can govern directly for an extended period of time only by ceasing to be an army. Also, it is precisely the following government, the successor regime, that is the basis for the legitimacy of the military usurpation of power.

Even if we work with the relatively arbitrary distinction between provisional (or caretaker ) and constituent military governments, in neither case there is an avowed and declared intention to create a new type of state, a definitive and lasting power. A democratic regime is always more legitimate in Latin America than the omnipresent "state of exception." Contemporary military regimes in Latin America differ in this respect from the modern dictatorships that Europe and other continents have known precisely because of their constitutive weakness. They do not claim to create a new legitimacy or to put forward a new system of political values among the ruins of the old. The authoritarian regimes of Europe between 1920 and 1945 aimed at the creation of a "new order," even a "thousand year Reich," as opposed to liberalism and democracy. The military dictatorships of Latin America today are first of all regimes without an ideology. The "national security doctrine" that those institutionalized military governments share to a lesser or greater degree furnishes a rhetoric that conceals their illegitimacy, rather than providing a new source of legitimacy. That doctrine was above all a way to forge a mobilizing consensus within the military institution around an image that was related to their professional alarmism. Their theories of war, by enlarging the spectrum of threats and locating them within the nation itself, gave a corporate basis for the army's intervention in politics, but they did not explain it. They could justify a lasting presence in positions of command in the state, but they did not establish a new power. In a word, the theory of national security in no way takes the place of an ideology, not in its consistency, or its diffusion, or its constitutive function.

This is why representative democracy is always on the horizon of these regimes. They appeal to it both in their legitimation and in their objectives, proposing to improve it, to strengthen it, to amend it, even to protect it, but never to abolish or destroy it, as was the case in other areas. This tells us something about the

Brazilian "system" that has always retained (with proper safeguards) parties, elections, and a congress—and even about the archaic militarism of Stroessner who, like all the classic dictators of the continent, keeps having himself reelected to the presidency and tolerates under strict surveillance a decorative but genuine multiparty system. The proclamations, declarations, programs, and maneuvers of the military in power in Uruguay or in Argentina refer to no other political system, to no other legitimacy than the traditional one of liberalism. Perhaps this is only a facade, but it operates against military messianism and prevents any program of remaining permanently in power. The military in power, however central their position in the political system and however great their autonomy, are participants in a political culture of the dominant internal and external classes who share a self-interested liberalism that acts as a check on the organic ambitions of the men of the barracks. Everything happens as if the dominant classes believed that the reestablishment of the market in economic affairs could only truly be legitimized in the name of a certain reestablishment of the political market.

Thus in Argentina every corporatist and antiliberal intention on the part of the military in power, from Uriburu in 1930 to Onganía in 1966–70, produced a reaction in the economic and social establishment and the replacement of the "anticonstitutionalist" generals by liberal military men.^[4] In Uruguay, Bordaberry, the civilian president of a military dictatorship imposed by the gradual coup d'état of 1973, was removed by the general staff in June 1976 for having been accused of favoring "new institutions" that were opposed to democracy.^[5] In fact, he had proposed the elimination of the party system and the establishment of an authoritarian "new state," the legitimacy of which would be guaranteed by the armed forces alone. However much they militarized the real exercise of power and however strongly the overpowering presence of military institutions and its representatives marked the whole life of the society, the Uruguayan generals found it difficult to give up the fiction of a civilian president: the garrison-state of Uruguay had a nonmilitary president until 1 September 1981 as well as a government from which the officers were practically absent. The parties were only "suspended" and the text submitted in

the constitutional referendum of 30 November 1980, while it formalized the participation of the armed forces in the executive, provided for the legalization of the two traditional parties and the return of a restricted and purified version of representative procedures. The rejection by the electorate of that proposal after the semblance of a campaign was able to demonstrate that the military had been correct not to underestimate, even after seven years of prohibition and hostile propaganda, the strength of the support for the party system. This was also demonstrated in other countries such as in the Peruvian elections of May 1980 and the Argentine elections in 1973 after, respectively, twelve and seven years of the suspension of institutionalized political life.

The government in Chile, of which General Pinochet has been president since 1973, figures among the most antiliberal military regimes in the continent and is among those that concede the least to democratic rhetoric. On the contrary the authoritarian language of the Chilean military, with its insistence on the need for new institutions, has Francoist accents. Corporatist tendencies are expressed without concealment by the advisers and leaders of the "hard" line of the regime—the "renovators," to use their expression—who absolutely reject the institutional system that was in force until 1973. After the coup d'état General Pinochet himself announced a new constitution that was supposed to "banish forever the politicians, sectarianism, and demagogy."^[6] The minister of the interior declared in September 1975, "All the political parties only divide the citizenry, favor their supporters in a demagogic way, and undermine the soul of the nation." The influential El Mercurio, spokesman for the moderates (blandos) and supporter of a moderate opening, commented on his statement as follows: "The government desires the destruction or the progressive disappearance of the parties."^[7] In the constitutional debate, while the goals and time periods announced in the plan of Chacarillas (July 1977) reflected the desires of the "hardliners" for the establishment of an "authoritarian democracy," the constitution submitted to the plebiscite of 11 September 1980, apart from its gradualism and the restrictions on freedom that it contained, called for the establishment in the relatively distant future of a representative sys-

tem that would include parties, a congress, and a president elected by universal suffrage. It is obvious that that juridical apparatus is aimed above all at justifying Pinochet's remaining in power. However, the utilization of a constitutional text that is not corporatist in inspiration and the fixing of a time limit to the state of exception is sufficient proof that even in the Chilean case the antiliberal temptation, the desire to exclude the "vanquished" forever, has given way to accommodation with the dominant democratic ideology.

The attempt to place representative practices under strict surveillance differs fundamentally from the ways and means adopted by dictators in other continents who had the same objectives. If we compare the regime of General Franco with that of General Pinochet the similarities are obvious, but the differences are no less clear. The two counterrevolutionary systems intended to break with the previous political situations, to refuse civil rights to political dissidents,^[8] to keep the "vanquished" definitively out of power by prolonging the victorious (by coup d'état or civil war) coalition through the unlimited personal authority of the military leader of the counterrevolution. However, in Franco's case there was no concession to pluralism for forty years except at the summit of the state in his bourgeois-technocratic coalition. Liberal democracy was rejected forever regardless of internal changes and the international context. Franco, caudillo of Spain por la gracia de Dios never put into question even incidentally his remaining in power permanently. Neither the referendum of 1947 nor that of 1966 posed the question of the choice of the chief of state nor the length of his mandate. The opposition also finally adopted the idea that the dictatorship was for life and that a change of regime could only take place after the death of the caudillo.^[9] General Pinochet, however, specified the time period of his provisional regime (it is true, after only four years), whatever may have been his real intentions for the future, and he did not exclude the possibility of the return of the parties and of competitive elections, modified of course by various prohibitions aimed at "protecting democracy." Thus, Pinochet proved that however much one might desire it one cannot create a new form of legitimacy in an environment that is hostile to such ideological adventures. Having made these remarks de-

scribing the limits of the militarization of the state in Latin America, let us see in what way demilitarization has been carried out—as well as on what level, to what degree, and with what kinds of regimes.

The Postmilitary State and the Forms of Institutionalization

The withdrawal of the army from power involves very diverse phenomena. The "civilianization" of the military state, however complete it may be, does not necessarily mean a return to "normal democracy." In order to analyze comparable situations we will only examine genuine systems of military domination, that is, regimes established by a coup in which the sovereignty of the armed institutions is exercised collectively over the selection of the chief executive and over all the major decisions of national importance, apart from the extent and content of civilian alliances or the background of the members of the government. We will therefore leave aside authoritarian regimes of other kinds, whether patrimonial or party, even when coercion and the participation of the officers play a major role.

We can dismiss at the outset a first type of demilitarization, the one secured by force through a civilian pronunciamiento. In fact, it is generally the military who overthrow the regimes of their peers by violence (more often, through the threat of the use of violence). Certainly many personal dictatorships, patrimonial autocracies, and postmilitary tyrannies have been removed through civilian uprisings allied at times to groups within the armed forces. Without going back to nineteenth-century Peru or to the civilian montoneras of Nicolás Pierola, a civilian-military revolution in Guatemala in 1944 overthrew General Jorge Ubico and his short-lived heir. In the same year in El Salvador students and soldiers ended the dictatorship of Hernández Martínez, whom his army no longer supported. Guerrillas, that is, civilians, defeated the National Guard of Somoza in 1979, and ended the dynasty in Nicaragua, repeating thus in different circumstances the Cuban precedent. However, among institutional military governments, only that of

Bolivia in 1952 was overthrown by civilians. The military junta that annulled the electoral victory of the Movimiento Nacionalista Revolucionario (MNR) was in fact driven out in the streets of La Paz. The militarization of power that in time, at least, had been relatively limited, was followed by a drastic demilitarization with the Bolivian army being largely demobilized and its leadership violently purged so as to remove any possibility of its being a threat to the new revolutionary government.

The most frequent forms of demilitarization consist in leaving the military system in place but removing the army from power. Since for reasons that are both internal and external to the armed forces direct military government cannot be permanent, a number of methods are employed to maintain the continuity of martial power. They can be classified into two main tendencies—that of personalization, and of legalization—with the two models linked or not to a real or only apparent opening toward democracy.

The transfer of power to a military leader who takes control over those who put him in power constitutes one way of subordinating the armed forces to the executive and returning the army to its professional tasks. The transfer of power from impersonal institutions to the person of one man never takes place very easily. That process is evidently less difficult when the army is less statist and bureaucratic. Somoza, jefe director of the National Guard in Nicaragua, and Trujillo, generalisimo of the Dominican army, "personalized" the neocolonial military institutions that were entrusted to them before seizing power in their own names, and not as representatives of the army. It was different in Bolivia where Barrientos could overcome his rivals while having his power as first among equals ratified through an election and also drawing on an historical-military legitimacy (the tradition of the Chaco war) and a quasi-personal popular support (the military-peasant pact). The installation of Barrientos as constitutional president prolonged both the military junta and at the same time the preceding legal regime of which Barrientos was vice president. General Banzer had less luck in this area, it seems, than his predecessor. Having come to power through a coup d'état in 1971, he governed until 1974 at the head of a conservative coalition that was made up of part

of the political class. In 1974, when he reorganized his government and replaced the politicians of the MNR and the Falange with generals, he seemed to emerge with increased personal power, but in fact the army took over the state once again.^[10] General Banzer, after having announced on several occasions beginning in 1974 that there would be presidential elections, in 1978 had to resign himself to not being a candidate as a result of pressure from the army. He supported Juan Pareda, his former interior minister, while the armed forces, which were divided, announced that they would remain neutral. The elections of July 1979 were followed by a coup d'état by the "official" winner, who remained in office after being improperly elected and clumsily institutionalized by the military.

Democratic endorsement can also make it possible for there to be a legal resolution of a deadlock in a regime of the military that allows them to survive. In Argentina in 1945 the regime that emerged from the 1943 coup d'état was caught in the cross fire of internal and external opposition that was intensified by the defeat of the Axis powers, but the "workers' colonel" was at the height of his popularity. Critically regarded by a part of the army that was opposed to his proworker behavior and his political ambitions, Perón provided by his candidacy in free presidential elections an honorable way out for the institution that had brought him to power and which he claimed to represent. The "revolutionary" officers, even those hostile to the lider, had a choice between allowing the return of the traditional parties and a continuity represented by the former vice president of the military government. During his first presidency General Perón was careful to recall his military origins and to appear as the inheritor of the "revolution of June 4, 1943." Thus, by electoral endorsement of a candidate of the army, or what could be described as such, the military institution found coherence again and in theory ceased to make decisions. The vertical hierarchy of discipline was established once more, recreating the internal unity that had been disrupted. The process of demilitarization can stop there or it can go further and be extended using the alternative political resources available to the military leader to the point that he can sometimes cut himself off to a large—and dangerous—degree from

his bases within the armed forces. This is what happened to Perón beginning in 1951.

The transfer of power to a military head of state can allow demilitarization without immediate recourse to dangerous electoral procedures. The military takeover thus ends up with a one-man dictatorship. This seems to be the pattern today in Chile. From 1977 the prolongation of the role of the military in response to the tutelary role that the armed forces had assumed strengthened the absolute power of General Pinochet. His irresistible rise, which relegated the junta simply to a legislative and constitutive role, was cleverly ratified by the success of the unexpected referendum of January 1978; the text of this document, which was imposed on the other members of the junta, stated, "I support General Pinochet."

In the Chilean case we may conclude that the high level of professionalization and the lack of political experience of the armed forces were factors that had much to do with that process of personalization-cum-institutionalization of the military regime. Hierarchic discipline took the place of political consensus, and fear of the return of the "vanquished" cemented cohesion around the leader who was a symbol of a counterrevolutionary policy that no one in the army questioned. This is why we can understand the lack of response within the institution to the criticisms of the political proposals of General Pinochet by General Gustavo Leigh, the air force representative in the junta, and to Leigh's subsequent removal and early retirement, as well as to the resignation of eighteen of the twenty-one air force generals. The slow pace of the "constitutional timetable" and Chile's international isolation operated in the direction of reinforcing military support for an institutionalization without an opening that gave the army a guarantee of what was essential to them. While the army no longer governed it was never far from power, and, more important, it felt that its needs were understood.

In most cases what is called the institutionalization of military regimes amounts to their legalization in conformity with the prevailing constitution. That change, which has some elements in common with a return to democracy and produces a certain liberalization, means that military power is exercised

purely and simply within the institutional framework that is considered to be legitimate and makes use of it. At the same time, of course, the major sources of uncertainty that are inherent in the democratic process are removed. These procedures can produce "military governments that are both elected, constitutional, and anti-democratic"^[11] as in Guatemala. This process of legalization is carried out generally in one of two ways: the formation of a controlled and coercive multiparty system, or the creation of a dominant military party .

An example of the latter is the system in force in El Salvador from 1950 until October 1979, the date of the overthrow of General Carlos Humberto Romero by a civilian-military junta. The military in power in 1948 tried to create an official party, the Revolutionary Party of National Unification (PRUD),^[12] a veritable party of colonels modeled on the Institutional Revolutionary Party of Mexico but without its popular bases. The Party of National Conciliation (PCN) that succeeded it was the party expression of the military institution as well as its electoral extension.^[13] However, it was also the state party in which under the aegis of the army, arrangements were made between the civilian or military bureaucracies and the dominant class. Alternately allowing or forbidding political competition (when the PCN lost ground) the "military party" controlled political life, obtained a majority in the Congress, and had a colonel or general elected to the presidency—although not without a certain amount of fraud in 1972 and 1977. The defeat of the PCN by the opposition in 1972 produced the disintegration of the semiopen electoral system. The fraud, repression, and the limitation of electoral competition that followed demonstrated the impotence and decomposition of the machinery that had been created to provide a legal guarantee of the continuismo of the military state.

The institutionalization of the nationalist military regime of General Torrijos in Panama seems to have followed a course parallel to that of the Salvadoran colonels, apart from their differences in political orientation. The Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD) established by his supporters nearly ten years after the coup d'état carried out in 1968 by the national guard against the traditional oligarchic parties also seemed to aim at becoming a Mexican-style institutional party. Its success in the congres-

sional elections of 1978 enabled the new civilian president who was elected by the assembly to democratize the regime without taking great risks.^[14] Would the revival of political life take place at the expense of the PRD and would the process of democratization go as far as the acceptance of a possible defeat of the official party? By keeping the command of the National Guard, General Omar Torrijos, the strongman of Panama, had reestablished the classic pattern on the continent of a military caudillismo that does not allow such a possibility to be predicted. Also, it was whispered in Panama that Aristides Royo had only a six-year lease on power, granted by Torrijos.^[15] However, Torrijos's accidental death in August 1981 opened a political vacuum that the National Guard could be tempted to fill.

The very fluid political-military situation in Honduras offers a special example of institutionalization through a traditional two-party system. Although, as in Peru, after the military reformers came to power in December 1972, they faced conservative forces who called for a return to institutional normality. Only following the removal of General Lopez Arellano, and then of his successor, Melgar Castro in August 1978, did the government of the armed forces begin a third period in which it ended the cycle of reform. The National party (conservative) that supported the new government offered to play the role of "military party, that is, of a civilian organization through which the military could continue to exercise power."^[16] For that purpose elections were necessary. They took place on 20 April 1980, but unexpectedly the Liberals, the traditional adversaries of the National party, were victorious. That vote of protest against the military—thanks to the goodwill of the Liberals and to international circumstances—did not result in a coup d'état to annul the unforeseen electoral results: liberal and conservative members of the Congress joined in voting to elect as provisional president of the republic until the next elections (after the adoption of a new constitution) General Paz García, the head of the military junta,^[17] and the party that won the elections found itself in a minority in the government! Finally, after many uncertainties the candidate of the Liberal party was elected president with a comfortable majority in the general elections of November 1981. But President Roberta Suazo Cordova had given so

many guarantees to the ultras in the army that the new civilian regime could not upset the military.

In Guatemala the state was profoundly militarized. The army not only exercised power but also many civilian functions, constituting a veritable bureaucratic bourgeoisie,^[18] while the chiefs of the general staff supervised the nominations to all posts of responsibility. Despite the use of more or less regular competitive elections, there was no military party. However, in 1978 all three candidates for the presidency were generals, and since the overthrow of the progressive civilian president, Jacobo Arbenz, in 1954 by Castillo Annas, "anti-Communist" governments supported by the army have been in power with or without popular ratification. Beginning in 1970—in a climate of increasing violence—generals regularly succeeded one another in the presidency as a result of elections that the army always won. The same scenario was repeated with some variations: the armed forces chose a candidate who was necessarily to become the chief executive and then they negotiated with one or two parties of the right or the extreme right that could provide the electoral bases. Pluralism was limited by a "constitutional range" from which the left parties were banned by definition.^[19]

In 1970 Colonel Carlos Arana Osorio was elected president with the support of the Movement of National Liberation, "the party of organized violence" and of counterterrorism. In 1974 General Kjell Laugerud was the candidate of a coalition of the MLN and of the Institutional Democratic Party (PID); in 1978, the so-called Revolutionary party allied with the PID to elect General Romeo Lucas García. It seems that only Arana Osorio actually won the elections and his successors gained power by fraud or the use of force by the preceding government. Thus General Laugerud definitely obtained fewer votes than General Rios Montt, but the government had his election ratified by the congress.^[20] Rios Montt, not having enough support in the army, had to leave the country. These constitutional governments are therefore the expression of a military state that is legalized along the lines of "controlled coercive multipartyism." However, they also represent forms of demilitarization that can alternately close and open toward the establishment of less exclusionary pluralist systems.

The evolution of Brazil shows both the ambiguity and the ease with which a controlled redemocratization can be carried out by the military when it has not eliminated democratic procedures, even if it has emptied them of their content. The policy of "decompression" and of opening initiated in 1974 by General Geisel and pursued by his heir, General Figueiredo, clearly produced a liberalization. The elimination of the dictatorial powers given to the president by Institutional Act No. 5, the ending of censorship, an amnesty, the return of the political exiles, the reestablishment of direct election of governors and of most of the senators, were so many steps in a "gradual" redemocratization carried out by the government at a speed of its own choosing. The reactivation of civil society and the enlargement of the recognized political arena (as demonstrated by the multiplication of publications of the extreme left that circulate legally) can still be viewed as involving a new strategy of institutionalization following the failure of the coercive two-party strategy adopted in 1965.

The continuing electoral advance of the tolerated opposition front (the Movimento Democratico Brasileiro) beginning with the legislative elections of 1974 and the weak hold of the official ARENA party, put the government in a delicate and possibly unstable situation. A well-ordered opening, on the other hand, could assure continuity while ending the situation of a "plebiscitary impasse"^[21] into which the system had been driven through its identification with the government party and the dual choice offered to the electorate. Some observers believed that the return of the pre-1964 leaders to political activity and the reestablishment of a multiparty system were measures that would lead to a split in the MDB and would therefore weaken the opposition by freeing it.^[22] While for the time being the new party law certainly did not succeed in isolating the left by producing basic political realignments, it resulted at least in the formation of two conservative parties: the Partido Democratico Social, the president's party, and a progovernment opposition Partido Popular Brasileiro (PPB), incorporating the moderates. That new political spectrum was to make it possible to have an alternation without risk that was acceptable to the military provided that the opposition was divided and, better still,

atomized. However, the prohibition of "electoral alliances" aimed at preventing the establishment of a united opposition front forced the PPB to combine with the PMDB, the new version of the MDB, while the unexpected rise of the "Workers party" (PT) further complicated the programmed opening.

We may therefore conclude that that opening constituted a new effort at legitimation of an isolated regime in crisis that was seeking to enlarge its base. The "slow and gradual" democratization was not supposed to be a prelude to the transformation of the "system," but a continuation of its long-term practice of changing the rules of the game when they were unfavorable to it. This new manifestation of casuismo and of the flexibility of a regime that was a past master at elections in which the loser won had an effect on the nature of the system itself,^[23] despite all its built-in safeguards. As F. H. Cardoso correctly points out, up to this point "the system legitimated the parties,^[24] but now the parties had become essential elements for the regime to function, so that the head of the state was presented as the leader of a party. In this setting liberalization develops its own dynamic. The utilization of authoritarian measures to channel a democracy that has been conceded in this way is no longer possible. It is only by playing the political game that the program can succeed and provide the regime with what it expects. A return to authoritarianism, which is always a possibility, would result in the loss of the political dividends of the whole strategy. However, political liberalization is not supposed to produce a social opening, as long-repressed and restricted demands emerge almost spontaneously. The repression of the large-scale strikes of April and May 1980 and of free trade unions seemed to indicate that the regime did not intend to give up its powers of control over "the dangerous classes" that were a legacy of the Vargas era and that, it is true, the "democratic experiment" of 1946 to 1964 had not changed. Will that authoritarian restriction remain and does it indicate the limits beyond which liberalization cannot go—even the price that must be paid for it to be permanent? Whatever the case, the regime does not intend, it seems, to surrender power or to lose the initiative. It has taken every step to ensure that democracy will operate in its favor. Rather than a relative democracy, there-

fore, it is a democracy in which those in power cannot lose control of what comes after them.^[25] The test that remains is evidently the presidential succession and the way that it is carried out.^[*] The revival of civil society, and the reactivation of the parties and of congressional life by narrowing the scope of authoritarianism, have reduced the space for the exercise of military sovereignty. The regime has changed its nature, but to whom does power belong?

Civilian Government and Military Power

We have seen the ambiguous character of a liberalization that is carried out without a break, but we have also seen that the means that are provided in order to maintain a facade of democracy already imply a certain form of demilitarization. In the recent history of Latin America noninstitutionalized military governments have generally agreed to withdraw from power only in exchange for certain guarantees. They make efforts to fix the rules of the game. Better still, when the situation permits it, they do not hesitate to demand a place for the military institutions in a democratic constitutional order that enables them to exercise a permanent right of supervision over political decisions. The draft constitution submitted by the Uruguayan military to a referendum in November 1980 in order to provide a juridical basis for their de facto power stipulated that the National Security Council (COSENA) made up of superior officers would have the right to make accusations against the members of the executive and the legislature without being responsible themselves to any other body, that it could intervene in "activities relating to national security," and could even (with the president) declare a "state of urgency" without referring to the congress, except after the fact.^[26] That tutelary democracy, as we know, was rejected by the voters after being condemned by all the parties from the Frente Amplio on the left to the traditional Colorados and Blancos.^[27]

[*] For the events that led to the election of a civilian president in Brazil in 1985, see the Epilogue. (Translator's note).

In Argentina in 1972, the military, who had been in power since 1966, decided, in order to avoid a social explosion, that elections would be held from which, for the first time since 1955, no group would be excluded. However, they wanted to avoid a "leap into the void" that might permit, in their words, a return to the "fatal errors of the past." To that end, General Lanusse, president of "the government of the armed forces," wished to conclude an agreement with the political forces on guarantees that were to be implemented by the army. Looking for an honorable way out, the army even made the holding of elections conditional on the conclusion of a "Grand National Accord" by all the political groups under its aegis. A military transitional candidate of national unity would not have displeased the general staff. After the political forces rejected any institutionalization of the participation of the military in a reestablished democracy and the attempts at an official candidate failed, the military put in place in extremis a double insurance policy by amending the electoral law to prescribe a two-round balloting system for the election of the president and a residence requirement that would prevent Perón, who had been forbidden to participate in political life since 1955, from becoming a candidate. The accumulation of protections and stratagems imposed by the de facto regime did not secure the support of the political forces. Finally, the junta of commanders in chief, in the absence of an agreement, issued a declaration that listed the principles that the military wished to have respected. Its text provided that the armed forces would be opposed, among other things, to an "indiscriminate amnesty" for crimes of subversion, and stipulated that they ought to "share in the responsibilities of government."^[28]

In reality the regime had lost the initiative. The electoral victory of the Peronist candidate swept away the checks put in place by the outgoing government. The slogan "Campora in government, Perón in power" was a direct challenge to the proscription imposed by the generals. In addition, despite the provisions of the electoral law, the military declared Perón's candidate, Hector Campora, elected with only 49.5 percent of the vote in order to avoid a second defeat in a presidential electoral round that would be more agitated and more mas-

sively hostile to the government. The two political groups against which the 1966 coup d'état was carried out, the Peronists and the Radicals, received 70 percent of the votes. A semiofficial candidate did not even get 3 percent of the votes. All the candidates who represented continuity with the military hardly received 18 percent of the votes.^[29] What is more, the new government promulgated an immediate general amnesty, and the president-elect rejected all the institutional suggestions as to who was to represent the armed forces. The leadership of the army was even decapitated by the nomination of a commander in chief who did not belong to the cavalry, which had dominated the army since 1960.

Similarly, in Ecuador the army that had seized power in 1972, when it withdrew tried to secure the acceptance of demands analogous to those of the Argentines. When the Ecuadorians decided to hand over power to the civilians after a palace revolution in 1976 had removed General Rodríguez Lara, they announced their wish to give the country a truly representative democracy. Nevertheless, the junta took some precautions, or rather tried to institute a democratic system that conformed to the image of the military. The process of democratization therefore was characterized by a prudently slow pace. It took no less than three years and began with the prohibition of the candidacies of the three most representative candidates who were considered to be dangerous demagogues by the army. A made-to-measure electoral law adopted in February 1978 provided that the future president was forbidden to have occupied that post in the past—which blocked the way to Velasco Ibarra, the eternal caudillo who had already been president five times, as well as to Carlos Julio Arosemena. Another ad hoc provision provided that the future president must be an Ecuadorian and the son of an Ecuadorian. The requirement was directed against Assad Bucaram, head of the Concentration of Popular Forces, one of the largest parties in the country, who was the son of a Lebanese. That populist leader and moving speaker, who enjoyed a large support in the subproletariat of Guayaquil, was the main favorite in the electoral race, as he had been in 1972 at the time of the coup d'état.

The use of the veto on the selection of candidacies, which

was contrary to democratic principles, augured badly for the reestablishment of a constitutional regime. The utilization of the French-style two-round election system, which only allowed the two front-running candidates to remain in the second round, seemed to be aimed at the establishment of a right wing front in the second round. The separation of the two rounds by nearly ten months and the numerous incidents during the campaign did not lead one to expect that the military would respect the results if they did not correspond to their wishes. They supported the conservative candidate, Sixto Duran, in an almost open way, while Bucaram, who had been excluded, was represented by his nephew by marriage, Jaime Roldos. However, Roldos won the elections and became constitutional president of Ecuador in August 1979 without any attempt by the military to question the election results that emerged at the end of a difficult and uncertain process.

It does not always happen in this way. The military seem to agree to retire only if the civilian government is very similar to their own or their candidate wins the elections. In all other cases the election may be invalidated, either immediately or after a period of observation that is more or less long, and when the circumstances are appropriate. The increase in the number of "contentious elections," to use the term of F. Bourricaud, is a result of that continuista behavior. The agitated political life of Bolivia from 1978 until 1980 is a good example of that tendency. General Juan Pereda, the official candidate of General Banzer, "unelected" in the July 1978 election, was the originator of a coup d'état on 21 July in order to guarantee a "victory" that was very much disputed, especially by the candidate of the moderate left, Hernán Siles Suazo. In November 1978, the legalist sector of the army led by General David Padilla overthrew General Pereda and called new elections for June 1979. When those elections did not produce a clear majority, the president of the senate was put at the head of the state. The process of constitutionalization was continuing when Colonel Natusch Busch seized power on 1 November 1979, but he was forced to resign two weeks later. He was replaced by the president of the Chamber of Deputies, Lydia Gueiler. New elections took place on 29

June 1980 which demonstrated a clear movement to the left. Siles Suazo, who came in first with a center-left coalition, was supposed to be named president by the congress on 4 August. General Banzer, who was a candidate in the elections, only received 15 percent of the votes. On 17 July 1980, a victorious and bloody coup d'état installed General García Meza in the presidency. Those who carried out the coup no longer spoke of elections. Their primary objective, "the extirpation of the Marxist cancer," postponed any form of institutionalization for the indefinite future, while military instability continued.^[*]

Lacking the power to impose a government to their liking that would keep them in power, the armed forces can make use of measures of corporate defense that are far from promoting the reestablishment of civilian supremacy in all areas. Also, the "postmilitary" civilian regime does not completely resemble those that have preceded it if the elected authorities lose the upper hand in the nomination of those responsible for the army. In fact, the affirmation of military autonomy is often the legacy of the militarization of power or the price to pay for the return of the military to their barracks. In Peru President Belaunde^[*] , who had been elected after a military interlude in 1962—and who was to be deposed in October 1968, and then reelected in 1979 following the return to democracy—was forced in 1963 to designate as head of each branch the officer who was at the top of the promotion list and to choose his military ministers in conformity with the wishes of the High Command. In Ecuador, shortly before the first round of the presidential elections in July 1978, the military amended the organic law of the armed forces and declared that the future president would be required to name as minister of defense the officer who was highest in the hierarchy.^[30]

A military defeat at the ballot box that is accompanied by a complete rejection by an exasperated public opinion, such as happened in March through May of 1973 in Argentina, does not guarantee a return to full representative democracy, even

[*] In 1982 Siles Suazo reassumed the presidency for the remainder of his term. See the Epilogue (Translator's note).

when the army respects the results of the elections. The fact that the government has been demilitarized does not mean that the military have given up power in cases in which they have become quasi-legitimate players in the political game. Thus, from 1973 to 1976 the military, who had apparently been removed by the electoral tidal wave of Peronism, followed the development of the political situation step by step. Perón removed his lieutenant, President Campora, only after the general staff had returned to him his rank of general and had signaled approval. The army was not absent from the public stage under a series of commanders in chief, who, whatever their inclination to neutrality, were faced with a regime that was rapidly coming apart after the death of the leader. The desire on the part of the government of Isabel Perón for the participation and, at the outset, legitimation of the military was to produce a very serious crisis in August 1975 that was a prelude to the fall of the civilian government. The ostentatious apoliticism of the Argentine general staff turned out in March 1976 to be one of the more subtle forms of military intervention. The theory of the "ripening of the fruit" and the willingness of the military to let the situation deteriorate argue that the 1976 uprising was neither spontaneous nor accidental.

The fact that the Argentine army never left power completely does not mean that if a country has experienced military intervention even once in the modern period it is condemned to its continuing recurrence.^[31] There is no doubt that with a half-century of military domination Argentina is an extreme case of a military-dominated political system. Yet, who would deny that the withdrawal of the armies is never definitive and that the postmilitary state, however democratic, always lives in the shadow of the barracks? The burden of that shadow affects the conduct of the actors, whether they wish to avoid a coup or to produce one. However, there is nothing inevitable about it. The longer military intervention does not take place, the more civilian power is reinforced, military usurpation made more difficult, and the political system demilitarized. On the other hand, the threat or continuing fear of a coup already amounts to actual intervention, as we see in Spain, where, since the death of Franco, for good reasons references to the "tolerance" of the

military are common in political life, while the ghost of General Pavia's horse haunts the parliament.^[32][*]

Demilitarization therefore is a matter of degree. The return of the civilians to government is not automatically equivalent to the "civilianization" of power, even after free and representative elections. We must ask why and under what influences and circumstances the military hand over power to the civilians; but also it is necessary to understand the limitations on the process of "extraction" of the military.

The Hour of the Civilians

The many theories that can be suggested concerning the causes of the transition from military authoritarianism to representative government in Latin America do not clarify the problem. The political, social, and economic factors that are generally cited actually apply to all kinds of authoritarianism, not just to the military version. Furthermore a number of them seem to be of little explanatory value because they can be turned in the opposite direction and thus seem to possess a "mythological" character. This is the term that is used by Wanderley Guilherme dos Santos when he criticizes the contradictory "economistic" explanations of authoritarian intervention. As he writes:

Thus economic recessions are cited both as an explanation of the erosion of authoritarianism, since they make it impossible according to these theories for these regimes to coopt the masses and/or the elites by the distribution of benefits, and yet the same recessions are presented as an explanation for the survival of authoritarianism because only the conditions of authoritarianism will permit those regimes to suppress demand in conditions of extreme penury.

Conversely high rates of economic accumulation and growth are used to explain the maintenance of authoritarianism because thus the governments can anesthetize the population, especially the masses, by

[*] In 1874 General Pavía organized a coup against King Alfonso in Spain (Translator's note).

distributing new gains to them, as well as to explain the erosion of authoritarian systems, since the social groups that benefit selectively from economic growth begin to demand greater political participation. Both the erosion and the continuation of authoritarianism as political phenomena are thus "deduced" as easily from economic growth as from economic decline. When opposing processes are used at the same time to explain opposite results, they can be characterized as "mythological."^[33]

Infrastructural theories of more direct application are no more convincing or operative. This is true of the interpretation of the recent wavering of the military regimes of Latin America and their tendency to move toward opening and institutionalization as the result of the completion of the process of "authoritarian restructuring of capitalism" that produced them.^[34] If we consider that General Pinochet's Chile is the most thoroughgoing example of such a transformation, to the point that we can speak of it as a veritable "capitalist revolution," the recent evolution of the Chilean situation amounts rather to a disproof of that thesis. That regime, like a certain number of its fellow regimes that were endowed with "constitutive" powers, declared that it had "objectives" (metas ) to complete rather than deadlines (plazos ) to meet. However, the initiation of the "seven modernizations" aimed at privatizing and "modernizing" by removing essential sectors of national life from state control^[35] (in order to establish the domination of the market and to change mental attitudes) has not prevented the regime from fixing a calendar for the progressive establishment of an institutionalized juridical system.

While it is evident that the actions and expectations of the different actors, the range of resources at the disposal of the military, their duration in power, and the initial justification of their emergence are factors to be taken into consideration, the continent-wide situation and the internal processes within the military institutions seem to be the most important elements in determining the political changes within military-dominated systems. Two mechanisms that are not exclusive but are rather often complementary or alternative can give the most complete explanation of those transformations. The first, involving the

will and intention of the constituent military actor, goes back to the overall legitimacy of which we have spoken and to the need to avoid or prevent the risks of democracy. The second, which includes many social factors and the particular functioning of the "military parties," emphasizes the problematical and nonprogrammed or indeterminate character of demilitarization that is the result of a whole series of "unintended effects," of chance, or of the mistakes or errors of those involved.

The effect of the hemispheric situation on the expansion and the involvement, as well as the orientation, of the military does not need any lengthy demonstration.^[36] The hemispheric policy of the United States, which has alternated between anti-Communist vigilance and a concern with democratization has produced an almost clockwork rhythm in the phases of autocracy and the waves of demilitarization. This does not affect the particular dynamics of the most autonomous Latin American states, but in their case produces adaptations that are formal and "cosmetic." If the overthrow of President Frondizi in March 1962 was a response to strictly national conflicts that went back at least to 1955, the military who carried out the coup borrowed their justification from the defense perspectives developed by the Pentagon in the framework of the post-Cuban strategic changes. They dressed up their illegitimacy in a legal cloak—putting Vice-President Guido in the presidency—in order to satisfy the need for democratic respectability required by the Alliance for Progress. In this case the contradiction between the Kennedyite civilian reformism and the counterrevolutionary antireformism of hemispheric defense of the Pentagon permitted a dualistic reading of political-military events on the basis of two levels of interpretation.

More recently, the defeat in Bolivia of the coup d'état of 1 November 1979 and the success of the coup of 17 July 1980 were not unrelated to the continental situation and the policy of the United States. Colonel Natusch Busch was compelled to resign after two weeks under pressure from the Carter administration, which was promoting the process of democratization. The other member countries of the Andean Pact, acting as a veritable democratic bloc,^[37] supported Washington in not recogniz-

ing the usurping government. In July 1980 President Carter, at the end of his term and in the midst of an electoral campaign, could do no more than issue a moral condemnation of a determined and brutal military intervention that was counting on his defeat. Indeed, observers have noted that the coup by General García Meza took place immediately after the presidential nomination by the Republican convention of Ronald Reagan—the hope of all the conservative forces in the continent.

In addition, the proper thing for a military regime to do is to demilitarize and legalize its situation—both because of the overall ideology that we have described and also because of the specific characteristics of the military apparatus in relation to power. The internal tensions produced by military participation in government weaken corporate cohesion and thus the defensive capabilities that are precisely the basis for the (temporary) legitimacy of the military takeover; in addition, participation reduces the political resources of the institution that then becomes dangerously "desacralized." Also for the military in power and those who support them, direct and nonlegal military government is neither a necessity nor a good solution. It corresponds rather to a stage, to a moment of political domination. Legalization is the next step. According to a cost-benefit analysis, the military in power act as if they are trying to find a balance between the social cost of the risk of democracy, and the institutional cost of military authoritarianism. This is why institutionalization is only rarely the same thing as the withdrawal of the military from power, and why legalization often does not have full and complete democracy as its goal. The withdrawal of the military is rather a mark of continuity and of the accomplishment of the mission announced at the time of the intervention. The calling of elections, even when they are not limited in an authoritarian manner, does not ipso facto involve the restoration of the establishment of authentic democracy. If we adopt the definition of procedural democracy of Joseph Schumpeter according to which "the people are able to accept or reject the men who are to govern them,"^[38] the postmilitary state is more likely to organize elections that are without surprises or without results. The true holders of power are not affected.

Furthermore, the leaders of conservative military systems and their ideologues and allies openly reject the uncertainties of the democratic game. Their avowed ideal, "protected democracy," involves a search for an absolute guarantee against the risk of the arrival of adversaries of the status quo by legal means to power. One of the ideologues with the most influence over successive military regimes in Argentina wrote after the overthrow of the civilian government in 1976 that the new governments in the Southern Cone were in the process of founding "future democracies on the solid base of order and development" so as to make them more stable.^[39] For their part the hardliners of the Chilean regime aim at the establishment of permanent safeguards against democratic subversion, since, to quote one of them, "One cannot live always on one's guard."^[40] However, the best "protection" for democracy is in fact the utilization—devious, distorted, or directed?—of the procedures of democracy to legimate authoritarianism. The postmilitary state that is truly established and stable, like all lasting authoritarian governments in Latin America, involves a semicompetitive system. This is a system in which political competition, whether open or controlled, remains contained on the periphery of power while those who hold power keep electoral competition far away.^[41] This system gives those who utilize it the advantages of the legitimacy of a representative regime without the risks of "alternation." It is evident that systems of military domination tend to move in the direction of formulas of this kind when they can, and if they have not lost the initiative. The conservatives among the military have no monopoly on it, if we are to believe the experience of Panama under Torrijos, which gradually became an exemplary semicompetitive system.

Brazil under General Figueiredo seems to be moving toward this formula through alternating relaxation and opening. Certainly the convergence of forces favorable to liberalization—from the tolerated political opposition to the industrial bourgeoisie, from the new middle class to the old political class—has played a role, but the system had a choice of methods and timing. The institutionalization program of President Geisel not only tried to break the opposition front by ending the system of two parties but also aimed at making the system independent of

the army. General Figueiredo was chosen by Geisel as his successor in opposition to the military apparatus. The army lost its role as the great elector. Since, as the election results showed, the legitimacy of the military presence was questioned by civil society,^[42] it was no doubt appropriate to provide a legal basis for the system without appealing to the army. Demilitarization without taking risks was also evident in the care taken by General Geisel, Figueiredo's successor, and the "palace group" that surrounded him to separate those in the army who were responsible for government from the military leaders (chefia contra liderança )—to use the distinction of Rizzo de Oliveira)^[43] —in order to establish the hegemony of the bureaucracy over the armed forces and especially to prevent the emergence of political-military leaders with a legitimacy of their own.^[44] This nondemocratic program may get out of the control of the sorcerer's apprentice who establishes it. The "perfect political crime," as an opposition deputy put it, may not be committed. There is a dose relationship between risk and legitimacy. The more uncertainty—and therefore electoral fair play—there is, the more legitimacy. Thus in Brazil the game is not over despite the precautions that have been taken (election law, division of electoral districts, weakening of the opposition). If the opposition parties could unite to defeat the official candidates in the future direct elections of the governors (if they take place), the "system" would have some difficulty in designating a president without taking account of that situation, and in any case the semicompetitive system would be destroyed.^[45] This is all the more true from now on because the tensions within the military structure created by the awakening of civil society may produce some sudden shifts. However, it is unlikely that those in power will take that risk. The well-timed prohibition of electoral coalitions will no doubt be sufficient to prevent this and to assure the "legal" survival of an exhausted regime.^[*]

Most of the time the internal processes in the military apparatus determine the timing of the phases of demilitarization and open the way to democratic alternation. Weakness in the military apparatus or a serious corporate conflict discredits the in-

[*] For an analysis of the subsequent transition to civilian rule in Brazil, see the epilogue. (Translator's note.)

stitutionalization program. Then an appeal can be made to the civilians and to democratic approval to resolve the deadlock and to overcome the destabilizing cleavages. We do not want to say that the behavior of other actors does not have a role, or that the completion of the process of demilitarization and institutionalization does not depend on other factors, such as the length of time in power of the noncivilian government, the circumstances in which it was established, and the level of violence that it has applied to the society. However, the return of the military to the barracks is first of all a military problem and it would be paradoxical not to view it from that decisive angle. It is evident that since the exercise of power is more demoralizing for a state institution such as the army than for a party,^[46] economic and social schisms increase the conflicts that divide the institution on nonmilitary questions.

A civilian restoration through elections without conditions or prohibitions is frequently the consequence of a palace revolution that results from a political change within the armed forces. The program that justified the military exercise of power is thus abandoned after a period of uncertainty that can last several years (three years in Argentina after 1970, three years as well in Ecuador after 1976, but five years in Peru from 1975 to 1980) and the military then have only to prepare an orderly and "honorable" withdrawal. The rejection of a single political orientation or of a caudillist attempt was at the origin of such shifts. Thus in Peru and Honduras in 1975 and in Ecuador in 1976, the conservative sector of the army was opposed to the reformist military men in power, resulting respectively in the fall of Velasco Alvarado, of López Arellano, and of Rodríguez Lara. However, a refusal in the name of the corporate functioning of the military in power to give a blank check to the man whom the army has put in the government results in the same consequences. The two causes may sometimes reinforce one another as in Peru. In the name of institutional rotation of those who hold the title of chief executive—similar to that applied in Brazil since 1964 and Argentina after 1976—the Peruvian general staff deposed Velasco Alvarado, who wished to maintain his power beyond the time prescribed by military regulations and tried to acquire personal support. The change of policy of the military

party, which could be explained according to some observers by the economic crisis and the urgent need to negotiate with social forces,^[47] led to the restoration of democracy. In the absence of the resources of a charismatic leader and because it refuses to mobilize the support of a party, a bureaucratic system that lacks support and lacks a program can only retire or collapse. The regime of General Morales Bermudez, which lacked party support or the will to acquire it, still lasted five years—providing an unprecedented example of political levitation, of course, but also illustrating the difficulties of organizing an orderly transfer of power in an internally nonconsensual corporate situation.

In Argentina, after the overthrow of General Onganía who had placed no time limit on his power and claimed to be leaving the army out of government, General Alejandro Lanusse, commander in chief and king maker, for a short period enthroned General Roberto Levingston. Levingston then broke with the policy of economic liberalism of his predecessor without having the means to do so or specifying the aims of his government. The only thing that was left for the general staff to do was to recognize the defeat of the "Argentine Revolution" and to prepare the army's withdrawal. Acute internal divisions and intense social tension did not allow any solution other than the transfer of power to the civilians and the termination of the proscriptions that had both undermined the authority of elected presidents since 1955 and encouraged the development of political violence—or to engage in increased repression that the divisions among the military did not permit.

In such cases everything happens as if the recourse to the civilians, the opening of the democratic game without any guarantees for those who are in power, appears to be the only solution that would make it possible to reestablish the internal front of the armed forces. Faced with the danger of a breakdown and decomposition of the institution, the elections relieve the tensions, and reunify a military apparatus that has been torn by contradictory tendencies. It is not a taste for paradox that leads us to say, parodying the rhetoric of the military, that in such a case civilian intervention puts an end to military dissension. In the absence of a minimal consensus, if not of a program of the

armed forces, the solution is formal demilitarization by means of democracy. However, in order for the tactical retreat to be effective there still must be a minimum agreement on the maintenance of neutrality or else the politicization of the military will produce a Bolivian-style cascade of coups and countercoups. In addition, since the divisions among the military are linked to differences among the civilians, demilitarization can only result if a majority of the political forces are convinced that it is a necessity and the military do not see in the return of the civilians any direct danger or possibility of revenge.

Tomorrow the Military? How to Get Rid of Them?

There are many obstacles to the departure of the military from the public scene, that is from the government, that impede or make impossible the return of freely elected civilians to their business. These derive mostly from a corporate logic. The continuation of the threat that justified the coming of the army to power obviously represents the most frequently occurring reason. An outburst of urban terrorism or an unsubdued center of rural guerrilla activity produces military reactions that are not propitious for a democratic relaxation. The overall invocation of the "danger of Communism" or of "the Marxist cancer" that must be rooted out before returning to the normal functioning of institutions is only viable as long as the specter of subversion has a concrete character for a part of public opinion. The logic of counterrevolution can only be fed by the memory of the revolutionary threat. The memory of the three years of Popular Unity is still the surest foundation of the dictatorship in Chile. However, in Brazil, sixteen years after the overthrow of the populist regime and the establishment of control over the popular forces, the leaders of the "system" that created the Manichean doctrine of "ideological frontiers" have muted that worn-out source of legitimation so that it now has little effectiveness. In Argentina, on the other hand, the chaotic conditions of the government of "Isabelita" and the "subversive aggression" that undermined the values of democratic coexistence gave the

counterterrorist regime that was installed in 1976 a considerable capital of acceptance.

The level of official violence is a decisive factor. A military regime that employs little violence enjoys a great degree of freedom of maneuver. A terrorist government, on the other hand, will see a demand for an accounting on the part of the nation. The violations of human rights and the problem of those who have "disappeared" in the course of the struggle against subversion call for explanations, if not punishment, of those who were responsible when the situation returns to normal. In Argentina the specter of Nuremberg haunts the barracks and explains its present immobility. "Argentina only confesses to God,"^[48] declared the minister of interior of General Videla. The demoralization and defense reflexes of an army involved in the "dirty job" of revolutionary war can lead to the indefinite prolongation of the military in power. It is therefore unlikely that the Argentine military can abandon the game as they did in 1973. This time the stakes are too high for them to leave the initiative to the civilians.^[*] It is a question of the future and of the honor of the institution. In Brazil, despite an adroit amnesty that whitened the "stains" of repression, public revelations and denunciations of the responsibility of the officers for the assassination of members of the opposition produced a very strong reaction on the part of the military ministers in February 1981, who warned against any "revanchist" attempt that might impede the process of opening. "The honor of the military is more important than human rights," said the headline of an opposition weekly.^[49] At the very least, liberalization must deal with this demand.

On this question the strategies of the civilians come into play, but their margin of maneuver is narrow. The search for a compromise, the acceptance of the "law of silence"^[50] imposed by the military, can give the party forces and those of democracy the opportunity to gain ground. Avoiding direct confrontation and dissipating any personal or corporate concerns among the officers most involved in the repression can in a curious

[*] For the transition to civilian rule in Argentina, see the Epilogue. (Translator's note.)

way facilitate a gradual movement toward the rule of law and representative procedures. However, this also means restoring legitimacy through an act of weakness, guaranteeing that there will be no punishment for usurpation—in a word, placing the military apparatus in the role of irresponsible arbiter, therefore demilitarizing the government while maintaining the militarization of the political system. It is the eternal dilemma of the capable and principled—accommodation or intransigence. But there is also a fundamental difference between a transition as a result of concessions and a democratic rupture, and it perhaps has to do in fact with the evolution of the relation of forces.

In combination with the preceding characteristic, the nature and duration of the military government also affect the process of demilitarization. While democracy involves both competitive procedures for the choice of those who will govern and a substratum of freedoms that make that possible on a regular basis, some Latin American military systems eliminate the first, but only place limitations on the second. The restriction of party and trade union freedom, and to some degree of freedom of expression, was not in fact a major characteristic of the Peruvian and Panamanian regimes after 1968, or that of Ecuador between 1972 and 1979. Argentina under Onganía, Levingston, and Lanusse (1966–73) in comparison with other earlier or later regimes experienced a remarkable level of tolerance of the opposition. The continued vitality of civil society no doubt encouraged the different forms of demilitarization of the government undertaken by those regimes.

The duration of noninstitutionalized military power and the corruption that results from absolute power is likely to make political alternatives more improbable. The Bolivian case of an army that is divided into clans in which promotion to the rank of officer is a means of social mobility perhaps explains this phenomenon. It has even been hypothesized that their repeated refusal in 1979–80 to recognize the results of elections that did not guarantee the continuity of the military was based both on the fears of many officers that they would have to explain the origin of their increased wealth to public opinion or to the courts, and on the desire of those in the secondary levels of the army to have a share in the corruption. However, beyond

these psychological and anecdotal explanations,^[51] it is true that in the Bolivian case there are more profound elements relating to the militarization of the whole political system.

In Bolivia, while the defense of an institution that believed that it would be threatened by the return of the civilians and especially by a victory of even the moderate left blocked a transition, this also took place because the army is the area where political struggles are carried out. In that "praetorianized" system civilian political sectors are always involved in military interventions. It is rare that a military group launches a coup without party backing or an alliance with civilian groups. The overlapping of civilians and the military, the permanent interrelation of the two spheres, make the "extrication" of the military and the "civilianization" of the government difficult. In such a militarized system every military uprising has or does not have the public support of civilians who are involved. It seems in Bolivia that "praetorianization" is related to the absence of a political majority in the recent elections. In Argentina, where the army has dominated political life for the last fifty years, the demilitarization of governments still does not change the system or end "praetorian regression." The disengagement of the military and a lasting return to a liberal constitutional model in civil-military relations seems unlikely in the short or medium term.^[*] This situation, which is an expression of a structural crisis and especially of a social blockage, cannot be overcome in Argentina without a profound transformation of national society.^[52] This does not mean that the conduct of the actors is insignificant or inconsequential, but that behavior and tactics are not programmed and are themselves conditioned by social reality that recurrent military interventions both affects and distorts.

A Farewell to Arms?

There is no doubt that it is easier to demilitarize the government than to remove the military from power. The various openings and institutionalizations often represent tactical re-

[*] To understand why this prediction turned out to be false, see Epilogue. (Translator's note.)

treats that permit new interventions after the military apparatus has reconstituted its political instruments. It may also provide a way to guarantee a juridical basis for the continuation of a regime that was established by force. An objection can be made citing examples of successful demilitarizations. Without referring to the examples of Chile and Uruguay, let us examine the model democracies of today that for twenty years have been spared the military storms that have shaken their neighbors. If we examine the relations between the civilians and the military in Mexico, Costa Rica, Venezuela, or Colombia, without thinking of what might happen tomorrow in one or another country, we can still inquire about the methods and stages of civilian preponderance. We should ask ourselves first if these countries have experienced phases of militarization in the past and how they have overcome them.

In fact, only Venezuela and Colombia ended a military dictatorship with the restoration of civilian rule. However, in the Colombian case the brief interlude of General Rojas Pinilla in 1953 had the support of the majority political groups who had called him to power in order to put an end to the violence that was destroying the country.^[53] The rapprochement between the two traditional parties that took place in 1957 sounded the death knell for the military government, just as the disagreement between them had enabled it to be born. In Venezuela, which in 1948 had barely emerged from decades of dictatorship by caudillos, the army removed from the government the civilian reformists that it had put there at the outset; however, the rise to supreme and absolute power of General Pérez Jiménez brought the officers who had lost power close to the democratic opposition. The coup attempts from both extremes that punctuated the presidency of Romulo Betancourt after 1958 underlined the difficulties of civilian supremacy. Nevertheless, the military base of the Acción Democrática party helped to strengthen the democratic regime that was all the more sure because Pérez Jiménez had discredited the intervention of the army in political life.

In Mexico the generals of the revolutionary army were part of the power elite and then of the dominant party. Also, the stabilization of the revolutionary order that was in their collective interest facilitated the absorption of a spontaneous and

predatory military caudillismo. In a way the "generals" had to recognize the civilian power in which they participated in order to assure their political preeminence. Finally, in Costa Rica, which has not had a real military intervention since 1917, the army was abolished in 1948, but even before its legal abolition, the permanent military apparatus was already on the way to disappearing.^[54] Therefore, in that case as well, there was no transition from military domination to civilian preponderance.

Are we saying that the uprooting of militarism only takes place as a result of a miracle and in exceptional historical circumstances? Or, as some observers of the Cuban and Sandinista revolutions think, only "total politicization of the military . . . will exclude any militarization of politics in the future"?^[55] Certainly an army that is the guarantor of the revolutionary process that has created it and is led by political commissars and selects its officers on the basis of nonmilitary qualifications presents little danger for those in power.^[56] The maximization of the power of civilians produces a sort of "subjective control"—to use the phrase of Samuel Huntington—that is very reliable. However, besides the fact that we should not mix governmental types and that we are now no longer in the context of a liberal democracy that is characterized by pluralism and alternation, the elimination of the distinction between the civilians and the military often amounts to the militarization of all of the life of the society. Among the Cuban ruling elite that fusion has taken place, it seems, to the advantage of military concerns. Also, the model of the civic soldier that results from that fusion, according to Jorge Dominguez,^[57] does not avoid a conflict of roles.

If we remain with the capitalist societies of the continent and the solutions arrived at within the framework of pluralism and constitutionalism, it is evident that there is no preestablished scenario for the reconstruction of democracy. Apart from the revolutionary schema that we have just described that is based on the liquidation of the army of the state, there are only limited precedents that can give us the first approaches of a model of demilitarization. Let us note, however, that the armed route to "civilianization" does not always involve systems that reject capitalism over the short or medium term. Civilian su-

premacy in Mexico originated in the dissolution of the army of Porfirio Díaz and its replacement by revolutionary armies that were closely linked to the future of the new regime. However, the same scheme, when it was applied in Bolivia in a different international context, led to a defeat. The 1952 revolution purged the army to the point of practically annihilating it, but instead of creating a political and lower-class-based army the MNR governments, which were frightened by social agitation and worker militias that they did not control, hastened to reconstitute the classic army with the aid of a United States military mission.^[58] In Bolivia, rather than favoring demilitarization, the fear of the dissolution of the military as an institution became one of the resources of militarism.

The liberalization of military regimes often gives the impression that it is a stratagem. Some sacrifice is made in order to survive. The temporary character of military power is emphasized in order to disarm the opposition. This gives the opposition a difficult choice—whether to accept the loaded dice of the regime, thus assisting it in acquiring legitimacy, or to pull out and paralyze its institutional program. In fact the distinction between a sham election and an opening that is acceptable to the civilian forces is not measured by the degree of competitiveness of the elections. Elections without surprises and won in advance by the government can advance demilitarization, first, by endorsing the system apart from the action of the military, and second, in giving civil rights to the forces of the opposition. The decisive criterion is not the level of competition, but rather that of civil rights and freedoms. The holding of elections that appear to be pluralistic establishes a facade of legality that the authoritarian nature of the government does not change. Acceptance of the game of politics requires a space of freedom that can bring about a "qualitative change." The logic of the two actions is different and the risks are not the same. In the last case if the opening has any content and even if it does not result immediately in a "democratic breakthrough," it seems that the "low profile" tactic of political forces that are moderate—but not moderately democratic—and capable of temporary compromises can be effective. It allows an improvement in the correlation of forces.

In that case the precarious character of the civilian regime that is under intense military surveillance means that the construction of democracy must come before a change in society and that political maneuvering must be limited to allow a political agreement that the politicians will not resort to the military to resolve political conflicts.^[59] This was what was agreed to by the Venezuelan and Colombian parties in the 1950s and it is also what has emerged from the behavior of the parliamentary political forces of the right and the left in Spain since 1976.^[60] On this basis several steps can be envisaged, without prejudging the order. One of them consists in the democratization of the institutions of the state (army, police, courts) and the other, which is almost contradictory to the first, is the creation in a undramatic way of the conditions for the alternation in power. This latter condition is the very expression of true pluralism and constitutes at that time the real "democratic breakthrough."^[61] That long and uncertain road to democracy is based on a wager: one accepts the game proposed by those in power in order to beat them at their own game. To do that it is helpful if the entire political class and the majority of the participating social sectors give a special position to democratic values and procedures and accept the uncertainty of the ballot, while the political and social forces bid a definitive farewell to arms.

We have tried to give a comparative presentation of the many diverse manifestations of military power in what is called Latin America. It seemed to us that to clarify the various methods of militaristic usurpation and the individual kinds of military domination would enrich reflection and give it order. You may reproach the author for his pessimism and even accuse him—why not?—of a shameful inclination in favor of the military. There is no doubt that it is more comfortable to study the positive heroes of history than the villains, and easier to denounce than to understand. But who knows in advance the cunning of history? Nevertheless, while we have shown that exceptional conditions are necessary for democracy to resist the tensions of development or the crisis of capitalism in the Latin American context, we have also recalled rather forcefully that there is no inevitability, whether geopolitical or historical, about the militarization of

the state in the subcontinent. To explain reality by means other than prefabricated schemes does not mean that you consider it to be rational—and still less desirable.

This book has devoted all its attention to the mechanisms of militarization and the process of military hegemony precisely because they are usually passed over in silence, no doubt to avoid giving too much respect to regimes that should be condemned. Similarly, we have concentrated our attention, to the degree that the documentation permitted, on the principal protagonists, the army and the military, who are misunderstood and ignored by those who oppose them.^[62] In lectures and seminars to informed audiences even in Latin America we have been impressed by the fact that all the questions concentrate on knowing the why of militaristic usurpation. The impatience to know the immediate causes of praetorianism seems all the greater because its manifestations have been insufficiently examined and the empirical knowledge of the subject is relatively limited. On the other hand, it is paradoxical to state that in Western Europe, and especially in France, where political science possesses a formidable arsenal of analyses and data on the functioning of the political system and where electoral studies have reached an impressive level of sophistication, no one ever asks why we enjoy a stable pluralist representative system. Nevertheless, the problem of the "invention of democracy," never directly addressed, should merit some consideration, and no doubt would be easier to analyze in France than that of the emergence of military power in the republics which are our concern.

We have also left aside sweeping generalizations to look more closely at the actors, their environment, and their behavior. We have not asked whether the militarization of the state in Latin America is a response to the need for capitalist accumulation in a context of underdevelopment, or whether we are confronted with a universal march toward authoritarianism that would affect our "industrial democracies" in a different way. It is indeed possible to ask if the Latin American military are the local agents of a transnational authoritarianism that, in the view of some, will establish in our countries a "new internal order," or a "soft fascism"^[63] that will place our

freedoms in peril. Are they rather the representatives of a "Neo-Bismarckian" model in which the state will authoritatively allocate resources with a view to accelerating development?^[64] Are the authoritarian systems that we have examined peripheral and local manifestations of the antilibertarian declarations of the Trilateral Commission^[65] or the antiegalitarian lucubrations of the Club de l'Horloge that proclaim the agony of the welfare state and the destruction of political democracy in the countries of the center? Or, on the other hand, do they correspond to a temporary situation of industrial catching-up and accelerated modernization that is preparing the terrain for the future emergence of the "hundred flowers" of a delayed but still promised democracy? This impassioned and passionate debate has not yet begun. In fact whatever paradigm is chosen, the same question remains. Why in either theory in Latin America are the armies the specific institutions that direct development and put it in operation, since neither in yesterday's conservative modernization nor in the planetary neoauthoritarianism of today do the military play a preponderant role?

The reader who is attracted to unity and coherence will no doubt have also noticed that in accounting for change we have emphasized the conditioning structures and the conduct of the actors—the role of organizations and that of their leaders. We know that there is a raging debate between those who hold the two approaches, and our culpable eclecticism demands an explanation that will only underline the importance that we attach to the specificity and the rich diversity of national situations. When the conditions for a democratic "takeoff" are met over a long period in a society, it is evident that the role of the actors in the preservation of stability or the return of a pluralist system is decisive. On the other hand in countries in which structural blockages exist the virtues and abilities of political men are not a factor. What would Romulo Betancourt have done in Argentina, and what would Ricardo Balbín have not done if he had been a Venezuelan? Besides knowing something about what appears to be an exotic phenomenon, there is still therefore the central question of the conditions for democracy. Is it a privilege that belongs to the Atlantic area or to the north-

ern hemisphere, or is it a form of public life that can be universalized? Neither political philosophy nor history has a satisfactory answer to that question. However, that is no reason to ignore it. The answers, if there are any, must involve the dynamic relationship and dialectic interaction between national and international socioeconomic conditions and the capabilities of the actors. May this book be useful in advancing in that direction since, in politics at least, knowledge of oneself comes from the knowledge of others.

October 1981

Epilogue (1986):
The Twilight of the Legions: Demilitarization Revisited

Following the publication of the original French edition of this book, Latin America ceased to be dominated by the military. The tendency toward demilitarization that was already evident in 1979 continued and became more accentuated. By 1986 throughout the South American continent there remained only the unshakeable General Stroessner in Paraguay and General Pinochet in Chile as representatives of what appeared to be an endangered species.^[1] This is not the only wave of democracy in the history of the continent. In 1961 Paraguay was the only country in which civilians had not reestablished themselves in power. We know what took place in the years that followed. The basic question that this rapid and wholesale withdrawal of the military from government poses is how lasting and profound it is. To use military terms, is it more likely that this is a tactical retreat in order to realign the ranks in preparation for new assaults on the power of the civilians, or is it a strategic withdrawal? To put it another way, are we witnessing one of those swings of the pendulum that seem to have characterized military-civilian relations in Latin America since 1930,^[2] or is democracy indeed on the way to establishing itself permanently in power after a prolonged and painful period of adolescence?

To clarify this central question and to provide some elements of an answer it is useful to examine the different experiences of demilitarization, beginning at the still uncertain point at which we left it, it order to identify the conditions that led the

military to give up power to the civilians. While elections are not the same thing as democracy, postmilitary regimes have certain distinctive features. Indeed, we can inquire as to the degree and causes of the failure to institutionalize the power of the military through the manipulation of democratic procedures. An overall evaluation of the functioning of the pluralistic representative systems of the continent will permit us to draw lessons from that historical phenomenon, and to distinguish the respective roles of political culture and of strategic and diplomatic circumstances in explaining its emergence and survival. A further question still remains after the restoration of the civilian authorities—what will be the future role of these armies that usually do not have an enemy on their borders, and no other doctrine than that of "national security" that has been so little supportive of democracy?

Controlled Transitions and Electoral Surprises

The military who were in power in Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay attempted to negotiate their departure; the arrangements they sought included the establishment of protective devices and buffers that would guarantee them either, in the best case, a right of review of the programs of the constitutional regimes, or, through the use of legal clauses or unacknowledged political alliances, an honorable and assured outcome that would protect them from reprisals. Even in the Argentine case where the military debacle of the Falkland Islands and the seriousness of their violations of human rights made it impossible to have a permitted and controlled opening, the military who had lost the political initiative tried discreetly to influence the results of the elections of 30 October 1983. A hastily adopted self-amnesty law, an excessively long ninety-day period between the election and the inauguration of the new authorities, numerous basic appeals to the right-wing Peronists (amnesty for their leaders, return of trade union assets) that demonstrated the existence of an agreement between the army and the old guard of the Peronist unions—were all attempts to prevent the victory of a

Radical party candidate who was committed to raising the moral standards of public life and restoring democracy. the army general staff thought that a Peronist victory would guarantee that the military would not be prosecuted for the excesses of their antisubversive struggle. Thus it was possible to ask whether the election of October 1983 was only a short detour, as in 1976, or the end of a cycle in Argentine political life.^[3]

In Brazil the "slow and gradual détente" initiated by General Geisel in 1974 did not, as in Argentina, turn into a humiliating rout. However, as in the case of its southern neighbor, the awakening of civilian society undermined all the protections that the casuistry of the system had been so adept at creating up to that time in order to conceal its rejection by public opinion. The opening was well controlled in the sense that the gigantic "direitas ja" mobilization in favor of the election of the president of the republic by universal suffrage did not succeed and the chief of state was elected by a restricted electoral college. While the transition was negotiated step by step with the military, the manipulation of the rules of the game was turned against its authors, ending the series of elections with variable rules that had allowed the loser to win that had characterized the period between 1968 and 1980. A split in the Democratic Social Party (PDS), the official party, as a result of maladroit government support for a candidate who was unpopular and unacceptable even to those in the corridors of power, allowed the opposition to secure a majority in the electoral college. In a way it was the lack of appeal of Paulo Maluf that allowed for the success of Tancredo Neves on January 15, 1985. However, everything took place Brazilian-style by means of procedures that involved conciliation and informal arrangements—without strident sudden changes, to the point that one could ask whether the split in the PDS had not allowed the regime (at least its civilian section) to "save the furniture" and to participate in the victory of the Liberal Alliance that brought Tancredo Neves, the leader of the PMDB, the principal opposition party, to the presidency. The vice president, Aureliano Chaves, was one of the principal opponents of the official candidate and the creator of the alliance formula that was victorious. Finally, in a tragic and surprising trick of history, the illness and then the death of Tancredo Neves

brought José Sarney, the former president of the PDS, official party of the military government, who was on the ticket with Tancredo, to the presidency of the republic. Thus a feeling of the breakdown and defeat of the military regime gave way to a genuine sense of continuity, owing to the last minute conversion of the conservative political elites to the program of the opposition—perhaps because the demilitarization of the regime was carried out by its own civilian supporters.

In Uruguay, the electoral results were no less surprising. However, they were more extended over time, as was appropriate for a country that in 1973 experienced a slow-motion coup d'état that was certainly the longest in the history of the continent. One might have expected more, however, from the military than an orderly retreat. The anonymous dictators of Uruguay had not been defeated militarily as in Argentina, or worn down by twenty years of quasi-absolute power as in Brazil. In 1980 when the regime decided to institutionalize itself by establishing a system of restricted democracy under military control, it was defeated in its first move—the referendum of November 30. Fifty-six percent of the voters said "no" to military sovereignty; "no" to the constitutional supremacy of the National Security Council; "no" to the absolute right of the general staff to name civil servants and the holders of elective offices; "no," in short, to the creation of institutions that were opposed to democracy. This was the first surprise. The second was the primary elections within the two traditional parties that were authorized again in 1982. This was a second defeat; the candidates opposed to the military received nearly 80 percent of the votes and the Blanco party, which was more clearly antimilitary than the Colorados, led in electoral preferences. In 1984 the military, faced with a widespread popular mobilization (banging of pots at preappointed times as well as general strikes) opened negotiations with the political parties that were aimed at preparing for elections. The parties were divided on this subject. The "negotiators" and the realists, including the Frente Amplio on the left whose leader, General Liber Seregni, had spent the whole period of dictatorship in jail, signed an agreement with the commanders in chief on 3 August. The Blanco party, whose leader had been imprisoned when he returned

from exile in Europe, refused to sign but decided to participate in the elections, which were marred by the proscription of Wilson Ferreira Aldunate of the Blanco party and of General Seregni of the Frente Amplio. Another surprise—intransigence did not pay. The "realists" won. Julio Sanguinetti from the Colorado party who had favored dialogue—a moderate except in his devotion to democracy—was elected president. Seventy percent of the voters voted for the parties that had signed the so-called Naval Club Accords of 3 August. Democracy was reestablished. The military went back to their barracks.^[4]

In differing degrees in all three cases the military participated to a greater or lesser extent in the establishment of the conditions for their own departure from power. This was true even in Argentina, and the Peronists will not deny it. Nowhere do we see the expulsion of the military after the collapse of the authoritarian regime—such as occurred in the case of the fall of Pérez Jiménez in January 1958 in Venezuela. Sharp breaks were not the order of the day. Were they negotiated transitions that produced democracies that were a gift of the military? The smoothness of the demilitarization this time did not, however, mean that everything would remain the same. The situation throughout the continent no longer favored the arrogance of the legions. After remaining uncertain until the end, a transition was carried out that was uncontroversial but effective. While the twilight of the legions did not resemble the (Wagnerian) twilight of the gods in either Brazil or even in Argentina, it may be that the method of small steps and dialogue was better than any other in avoiding a democratic restoration that would only be a brief interlude. The moderation that was exhibited in the change was an indication, perhaps, not of weakness of the civilians, but of the maturity of the democratic forces.

Military Impotence and the Contagion of Democracy

Since 1970 the military had staged successive retreats in Ecuador, Peru, and Honduras. However, one swallow does not make a summer, and one election does not make a democracy.

The establishment or the reestablishment of a representative pluralist regime is a long-term effort. Its first test is whether it completes its constitutionally mandated term of office. The transfer of power from one elected president to another, especially if his successor is not of the same party or the official candidate, constitutes genuine proof. We looked for this in the countries that were the first to return the military to their barracks. Despite the fragility of those newborn democracies, the test turned out positive in Peru, in its neighboring country, Ecuador, and in Honduras, thus giving the lie to the pessimistic predictions that cited both past history and present difficulties.

In Ecuador, the accidental death of a center-left president who had promoted reforms and defended human rights did not prevent the vice president, who was his constitutional successor, from serving out his term of office. The election employing the French system of a two-round vote, of a new president, León Febres Cordero of the center-right, finally demonstrated that democratic institutions were well established. It is true that in 1978 a group of low-profile military men who were more reformist than repressive had handed over power without much resistance.

In Peru, the stakes seemed to be much higher. This was not because the military, torn between their desire for order and their hope to change the structures of a chaotic society, had actually opposed the weak and conservative civilian president, but because this time the two most popular candidates were both situated clearly on the left—one an adherent of Marxism who had the support of the Communist parties, and the other representing the APRA, which had been the bête noire of the military since the 1930s. The movement to the left was related to a social and economic crisis and to the rise of a messianic and nihilist guerrilla movement that was centered in the poorest regions of the Andes and was leading Peru into a fatal involvement in violence and massive repression. Despite all these problems, the brilliant young candidate of the APRA, Alan Garcia, won by a comfortable margin over the mayor of Lima, the candidate of the left. On 28 July 1985, for the first time in forty years, a transfer of power took place between two presidents who had both been elected in free elections.

In a very different context electoral legalism also triumphed in Honduras where there was uncertainty concerning both the evident desire of the president who had been elected in 1982, Suazo Cordoba, not to surrender power, and his capacity to rule in the face of the army chiefs. Whether it is viewed as an advance post in the struggle of the United States against Sandinismo or the unfortunate victim of Communist expansionism by Nicaragua, Honduras, the poorest country of the Central American isthmus, has never been a model of democratic stability. The victory of the Liberal candidate in 1982 had raised great hopes—all the more because the army had been traditionally linked to the National party. Very quickly the new president, who seemed to sacrifice all the ideals of his party to anti-Communism and an extravagant clan spirit, allowed the commander in chief of the army, General Gustavo Alvarez, to assume more and more power. Alvarez, who headed the Association for the Progress of Honduras that was made up of prosperous factory presidents and was supported by the "Moonie" sect and its local branch, CAUSA, appeared to have relegated Suazo to the post of a constitutional monarch. However, the excessive power of the general and the unrestrained corruption of which he was guilty, especially in the utilization of American aid, led to his removal in disgrace. His companions in arms arrested him and forced him to resign and leave the country on 1 April 1984. Without his powerful support President Suazo Cordova engaged in a number of maneuvers that were aimed at retaining power in 1985. That desire for "continuismo," very much a part of the Honduran political tradition, manifested itself step by step in attempts at constitutional reform and a veritable internal coup to impose his candidate within the Liberal party. All of this led to a conflict with the congress as well as with the judiciary. On the eve of the 24 November elections no one knew what election law would be in force or which candidates would be valid. To avoid a split within the Liberal party and the paralysis of government institutions it was decided that the primary elections of the two large parties (the National and Liberal parties) would be held at the same time as the general elections. As in the case of the "ley de lemas" in Uruguay the winning candidate would be the one who had the most votes within the party that had received the most

votes. Since the total vote for Liberal candidates was 51 percent the anti-Suazo Liberal, José Azcona Hoyo, won the election with 27.5 percent of the votes against 42.4 percent for his rival, Leonardo Callejas of the National party. The official candidate supported by Suazo Córdona received half the votes of his elected adversary. Not only did democracy triumph but—a little point of history—for the first time an elected Liberal turned over power to another elected Liberal president.^[5]

The consolidation of democracy in these three countries is undeniable. This is less surprising, however, than the experience of democratization in the countries that have had longstanding military dictatorships. The return of Bolivia to democracy in 1982 seemed to have an element of the miraculous, unless it was simply a demonstration of the disasters that the Andean nation faced: drought, a drop in the price of tin, an increase in narcotics traffic, inflation of Weimar proportions, and a debt that could not be repaid. However, what are we to say of the election of 14 July 1985 of Victor Paz Estenssoro to the presidency, and of the harmonious transfer of power—the first in a quarter of a century—from an elected president, Herman Siles Suazo, to his constitutional successor in the warmly supportive presence of presidents Raúl Alfonsín, Belisario Betancur, and Julio Sanguinetti? Bolivia had still more surprises for us. Not only did General Hugo Banzer, an unsuccessful candidate for the presidency after having been military dictator for a decade, recognize his defeat, but he hastened to sign a democratic pact with Paz Estenssoro forbidding resort to the military.

Democracy has never been very strong in Guatemala, since it has been in effect for an absurdly short period—only ten years from 1944 to 1954 in the last three-quarters of a century. The military system seemed very well institutionalized with its general-presidents and its rump parties. However, after having brutally crushed a guerrilla movement that had arisen in the sixties, the army decided to hand over power, and to call elections while the disappearances and assassination of opponents were still going on. General Mejía Victores kept his promise. In December 1985 the candidate who was most opposed by the military, Vinicio Cerezo of the Christian Democratic party, won with an overwhelming majority of 68 percent of the votes, rele-

gating the extreme right that had been dominant since 1968 to the rubbish heap of history. Thirty-one years later democracy arose from the ashes in Guatemala, permitted by military forces that had acquired a reputation for brutality and ignorance and had brought the economy to the edge of collapse. However, at what price, or rather in what conditions—and for how much time?

In the face of this continent-wide panorama, the contagiousness of democracy cannot explain everything—nor can the possibility of a conversion of the Latin American officers to the discreet charms of pluralism. In Bolivia as in Guatemala, in Uruguay and in Honduras, one can only be struck by the fragility of the democracies that have been reestablished facing armed forces that are intact and have lost none of their arrogance (even in Argentina), or their independence, or their interventionist ideology. And yet, one figure is more telling than any other in suggesting a special combination of forces that marks a break with all historic precedents: there has not been a single coup d'état or forceful takeover of power by the armed forces since 1976. Ten years, a century in the history of the continent! Better still, everywhere the uniformed caudillos have been reduced to impotence and putsches crushed by the legal authorities. General Alvarez, the strongman of Honduras, did not take power, but a plane into exile. In Ecuador, an insubordinate general, Frank Vargas Pazzos, who revolted in March 1986, was not supported by the military and his uprising was throttled by military action.

There is no doubt that the historical outcome that most characterizes the period is the fact that henceforth the military will not be able to govern with impunity. For the first time in Argentina the dictators in uniform who were guilty of violations of human rights have had to answer for their actions and their misdeeds before a human tribunal. Admiral Massera and General Videla were condemned to life imprisonment in December 1985. No doubt it is easy to agree with the activists from humanitarian organizations who found the sentences of the other guilty parties too mild in relation to the overwhelming weight of the evidence. Yet what an exemplary precedent it was! How could one establish a worthwhile and respected de-

mocracy while shamefully forgetting the thousands of people who had disappeared and had been killed? It is true that neither Uruguay nor Brazil followed the Argentine example. Guatemala had issued an amnesty in advance for all political acts since 1982. Only Alan García as he took office retired the leading generals, and removed several hundred police officers for corruption or the massacre of civilians. Vacillating democracies took in hand the sword of justice. The military snorted and reared in the traces, but the law prevailed. Even in the most "praetorianized" systems, it seems, there is no longer room for the "military juntas." Put in another way, there are no longer civilians who are willing to support them. The obstacles in the way of stable restoration of democracy are so numerous and the terrain so full of potential explosions in most countries that, short of a "cultural revolution," it is difficult to see how the current experiments can establish permanent roots. Only the demilitarization of the civilians can paralyze the political inclinations of the military.

The Demand for Democracy and Cultural Revolution

While it is easy to call elections, it is more difficult to govern after many years of destructive military rule and sometimes twenty, thirty, or fifty years of the hegemony of the military. The economic disaster alone cannot explain the return of the military to their barracks. Nevertheless, their legacy everywhere was uniformly catastrophic. Still more negative, however, than the latest military adventure was its impact on the political forces and the behavior of authoritarianism. The "praetorianization" of attitudes is more difficult to exorcise than incompetent conduct of government.

Take the example of Argentina. Everyone knew that in spite of the fact that he was the first civilian president elected by universal suffrage in regular free elections since 1928, and in spite of the size of his victory and his personal prestige, Raúl Alfonsín had only a narrow margin of maneuver in his effort to reestablish democracy. It was evident that the civilians had

returned to power because of the nature of the former regime, which was in a more precarious and uncomfortable situation than the military regimes of 1958, 1963, and 1973. It is true that never before had an Argentine government confronted so many dramatic and potentially explosive problems. But the well-known time bombs left by the dictatorship (the "disappeared," an external debt of $ 50 billion, galloping inflation, conflicts over the Falkland Islands and the Beagle Channel) were only the visible part of a generally dark picture that was not favorable to the development of an harmonious and stable political life.

The effects of "state terrorism" and of an economy oriented toward speculation are not easy to eliminate. If it is true that absolute power corrupts absolutely—and not only those who hold it—then it is also certain that Argentina in December 1983 faced more serious problems than in the past, while possessing fewer means to resolve them. It was in this context that the new occupant of the Casa Rosada undertook to govern with the consolidation of democracy as his principal goal. His first objective was to remove the obstacles from the terrain. Thus he took steps to defuse nationalist pressures and the costly demands of the military concerning the two territorial disputes. The Beagle Channel affair was completely resolved. Because he wished to avoid both forgetfulness and vengeance concerning the demands of the "dirty war," he attempted to neutralize any corporate reaction within the armed forces by handing over to the courts only the highest responsible officers, the members of the three juntas that had succeeded one another since 1976.

In the area of economics, after a period of indecision and direct negotiation with the banks and the International Monetary Fund in June 1985, Alfonsín changed course. The struggle against inflation became his number one priority. For that purpose the Plan Austral called for a reduction in public expenditures, a freeze on prices and salaries, and a currency reform. The "economy of war" produced results and it is popular. Volunteer brigades denounced shopkeepers who were guilty of violating government regulations. The monthly inflation rate fell to 2 percent in September; it had surpassed 1 percent per day four months earlier. The miracle was not an economic one.

Despite a surge in unemployment, difficulties in everyday life, and the complaints of the Peronist trade unions, the president's party won the legislative elections of November 1985, and Raúl Alfonsín enjoyed an enviable popularity after nearly three years in power.

What was it that allowed him to eliminate "the unemployed work force" of the paramilitary, to immobilize attempts at destabilization, to halt the inflation, to fire the generals, and to carry out a judicial procedure that was both exemplary and risky? A rupture had taken place with the general elections of 30 October 1983 that were won by a candidate who had not been expected to win. We can ask if the surprising defeat of the party that appealed to the memory of General Perón was not a veritable turning point in history—the end of a cycle dominated by the destabilizing confrontation between the Peronists and the military. The arrival to power through free elections of a party that for thirty years had not passed the barrier of 25 percent of the vote demonstrated the intention of the electorate to break with the past. Is he Alfonsín or the exorcist? He was the only one to denounce the practices of a "praetorianized" political life in which alliances with the military did not disgrace those who formed them, and the preservation of democratic institutions was evidence of anachronistic naiveté. It was his denunciation, that some called "suicidal," of certain corrupting practices of the "politics of sedition" that permitted Alfonsín to win the last-chance election.

Paradoxically, the catastrophic results of the military regime provided an unexpected opportunity to reconstruct democracy and to establish durable roots for it. The isolation of the armed forces, discredited politically, economically, morally, and even professionally, created the minimal conditions for a transformation of the system. The new suspicion of the military on the part of the upper bourgeoisie after the Falkland War, which was seen as a dangerous anti-Western adventure, may act as a deterrent to their traditional tendencies toward coups, while the defeat of the Peronists proved for once that crime does not pay and that an "invincible" pact between the army and the unions could be the prelude to defeat. Is it still necessary for there to be a complete reorganization within the "first

political party of the West" to allow the removal of the most antidemocratic elements? The margin of maneuver of the civilian government is weak. Nevertheless, we can assume that the Argentines no longer expect miracles and that, having demonstrated in the elections of 1983 their desire to survive and to expel the old demons, they can work together to assure the triumph of the rules of social coexistence over corporate egoism. The survival and identity of a society that came very close to collapse are at stake.

Argentina is certainly a limiting case. The debacle of the Falklands and the horrors of the "dirty war" have contributed decisively to discrediting the appeal to the military and to rehabilitating the "dull gray old system" that is called democracy. But the cultural shifts and political changes that have taken place elsewhere in different ways have been no less significant.

In Brazil business circles and the conservative politicians have each in turn experienced a conversion on "the road to Damascus." The businessmen rose up against the expanding statism of the military regime, and perceived in a confused way that only a representative pluralist regime free from military tutelage would give them back the right to participate in major economic and social decisions. The politicians who abandoned the official party in 1984 were overwhelmed by the popular mobilization that emerged in the campaign for direct elections. The "Nova Republica," despite the death of Neves and the heterogeneity of its cabinet ministers, is very popular—so popular that Brazilians gave massive support in the streets to a plan for economic recovery that was very similar in its effects and objectives to the Argentine Plan Austral. While the "martyrdom" of Tancredo Neves, "symbol of national unity and the struggle for redemocratization,"^[6] in a certain way gave the regime a sacred quality, the military moved discreetly into the background. We do not know the agreements that were made with the civilians concerning overall directions, political and social rights, or the constitutional framework. The election of a Constituent Assembly scheduled for 1986 should resolve that mystery.^[7] One thing is certain. The military apparatus has not been breached; in contrast to Argentina, until now no member of the military has had to answer to a court for his political or

repressive actions. However, the legalization of the parties of the left, including the Communist party, the recognition of the trade unions, and even the lifting of the ostracism that was directed at the presidential ambitions of Leonel Brizola, the governor of Rio de Janeiro, indicate either a deal, or an evolution in conduct. There is no evidence, however, that the dreaded intelligence community, the "monster" SNI, has been weakened, dismantled, or turned over to civilian control. Gradual and prudent demilitarization, Brazilian-style, has not been translated into an overall change concerning democratic values. However the resurgence in the recent municipal elections of a populist and authoritarian right around former president Janio Quadros who was elected mayor of São Paolo with the support of the conservative establishment proves that the game has not yet been won.

In Uruguay less time was needed than in other countries for the middle and upper classes, who in 1970–73 had been frightened by the Tupamaro guerrillas and the strikes, to demonstrate their rejection of authoritarianism and military tutelage. Beginning with the constitutional referendum of 1980, the first defeat of the regime, it was clear that the country did not support it. Certainly there were economic reasons for that rejection—the discontent of the large agricultural sector that felt that it was paying the cost of the economic policy of a regime that wished to promote nontraditional exports. However, the attachment to democracy was based on broader and deeper motives. Historically democracy had been part of the culture, indeed of the self-definition of the country.^[8] The military also accepted these values so that the leaders of the Uruguayan army believed that there was no other source of legitimacy but free elections. Military men who respected the rules of democracy organized their own defeat in electoral consultations that were supposed to legitimize their power.^[9] The opposition was able to express itself, there was no resort to fraud, and basic liberties were reestablished for the occasion. The Uruguayan army was trapped in its own legalism at the moment that it tried to institutionalize its participation in power. While the military leaders in their negotiations with the parties did not obtain the recognition of the special political rights that the 1980 referendum had refused

them, they nevertheless imposed a certain number of limitations on the new president—in the areas of nominations for the upper ranks in the army, that of the proclamation of the state of siege (urgency), and in the matter of the repression during the period of military rule. This did not prevent the legalization of the trade unions and the parties of the left, or the removal of three extreme-right generals who had not observed their obligation to maintain the reserve that is appropriate for the military in a system of representative institutions.

In the same area one wonders what will become of the relations between the army and the recently democratized government of Guatemala. Before they left power, the military put in place arrangements for the antisubversive struggle that gave them exorbitant civilian and political prerogatives and established a veritable dualism of power, so to speak. The maintenance of the civilian self-defense patrols in the villages, the creation of "poles of development" under military tutelage (a type of strategic hamlet in which the rural population is regrouped in the guerrilla zones) and, at the regional level, the organs of intelinstitutional coordination headed by the local commander, all reduced the powers of the legal authorities. Prudently, President Cerezo did not seek a confrontation with the power of the military, either in this area or in that of human rights, although he ran the risk of appearing to be a president without power like his predecessor, Julio Mendez Montenegro elected in 1966, who was content to cover the absolutism of the military with a fig leaf of representative government.^[10] Nevertheless, despite the seriousness of the economic crisis inherited from the preceding regime, there are indications here and there that prove that demilitarization is in progress. The new government is adapting the institutions inherited from the authoritarian government by civilianizing them. The political police have been dissolved. The organs of "interinstitutional coordination" have been placed under the governors. Will what seemed impossible at the end of the 1960s become a reality today? Certainly history does not repeat itself, but why should Cerezo succeed where Mendez Montenegro failed? To answer that question—which extends far beyond Guatemala—means to draw lessons from the wave of democracy that is now sweeping

over the continent and to understand the special characteristics of a regional situation that goes beyond the particular elements of each nation and the strategies of their internal political forces.

Why the Civilians?

The contagiousness of democracy, the solidarity among regimes of the same type facing the same dangers, should certainly not be underestimated. However, we must look elsewhere for the genuine lessons to be drawn from a phenomenon of a duration that seems unprecedented since World War II. It has often been said that the military was not unhappy to no longer be obliged to direct countries that they had led to bankruptcy. The extent of the economic disaster is supposed to have been the essential element that dictated their actions. In the past, economic crises were fatal to democracy and favored dictatorship. The extent of the challenges that the countries in which democracy has been reestablished must face (external debt, a drop in prices of raw materials among others) does not seem to argue for the longevity or the stability of those regimes. We have shown that those deterministic explanations are debatable because they are so unpredictably reversible.

If we look more closely at the political processes involved in the transitions to democracy now under way, we can only note, first of all, the defeat of the attempts at institutionalization of military power, whatever their form. Panama remains an exception that should be discussed separately, for the simple reason that in the present situation liberalization cannot be carried out only halfway. You cannot stop democracy in its tracks in a continent in which the liberal ideology is, and remains, dominant. The transition appears to possess an internal dynamic that is self-sustained, if not irresistible, except at an excessive social cost. That dynamic means discord and division in the ranks of the military, but it can only arise in specific conditions. In fact its emergence presupposes a rather large consensus in favor of democratic values among the dominant sectors and organized forces. If a decisive social sector refuses to accept

pluralism, the fragile balance of the edifice of representative government will be shattered to the benefit of civilians and military men who prefer to fish in troubled waters.

But what are we seeing in a great number of the recently "democratized" countries? First of all, the discovery by the immense majority of the dominant classes, and very often by the middle classes as well, that the worst democracy is less damaging to their interests, properly understood, than the best dictatorship. Whether it is in Argentina, Brazil, or Uruguay, those who yesterday flattered the military and saw salvation for the country and for themselves in the abolition of the "anarchy" of representative government and the establishment of a strong and undiluted authoritarianism have abandoned those views or have become converted to the openness and liberty of a democratic order. However, they are not alone. On the left a parallel process of conversion has often taken place. The defeat of the strategy of armed struggle, and the responsibility of the guerrillas for the emergence of the terrorist state, have produced a change in their partisan outlook. The contempt for "formal" liberties and the confusion between a metaphorical "dictatorship of the bourgeoisie" and the realities of military dictatorship have been abandoned. Unions and parties of the left have understood that they cannot develop outside the liberal system, and that the politics of negation is the most negative of policies. It is true that there are hard cores here and there of those who have not given up their old belief systems, but they no longer produce a response among the young and the intellectuals, much less among the workers. Also, as in Venezuela in the past, former guerrillas are preparing to enter into the legislatures that they had once spurned. Thus it may be that the implacable ferocity of the recent periods of the military rule has increased the chances of democracy. The demand for democracy extends to all social classes.^[11]

The argument to the contrary in these developments is the difficult situation in certain countries in Central America where a conversion to democracy has not taken place. This is the case in El Salvador where after fifty years of military rule a process of democratization is being carried out in the context of a civil war. It is a democratization that is both suspect and unfortunate. In

effect, it is supported by all those who have never believed in the virtues of democracy, and combated, even with arms, by those who should have an interest in supporting it. The right supports it for tactical reasons—to win the war and regain its privileges—and the left combats it in the name of its Leninist ideology without taking into account the changes that it has already brought about in national life. Of course it is a transitional phase, but it situates the country apart in the community of nations moving toward demilitarization. We can ask if Guatemala is not in a middle position between the restored democracies of the Southern Cone, and its southern neighbor. At least the democratic left is not totally behind the guerrillas, and they themselves, it is true, no longer appear to be a credible alternative.

If it is true that the dictatorships are dying, it is no less true that their parallel final agonies and deaths are not unrelated to the economic situation. The effects of the economic crisis and foreign debt on their social bases certainly should not be neglected. The erosion of support is also reflected in the sudden increase in the "demand for democracy" that affects all sectors, even those that are not demanding in the area of civic partidpation. However, the policy of the United States with regard to authoritarian governments no doubt also plays a determining role, less because certain sectors of the apparatus of the American government have ceased to favor antidemocratic intrigues than because the official policy of Washington seems to consist in resolute support for democracy while cutting the ground from under the feet of would-be dictators—as long as American interests are not at stake.

The human rights policy of President Carter, despite its maladroit moralism and interventionism, helped to launch the movement. It even succeeded in aborting successful coups d'état, as in the case of Bolivia: where Colonel Natusch Busch seized power in October 1979 but could only retain control for seventeen days because of the ostracism of Washington, which was reinforced by its regional allies. However, one of the characteristics of this wave of demilitarization is that the arrival in the White House of a Republican administration that was determined to reinforce American power did not produce a turnabout

in this area. The hardline policy of President Reagan in Central America and the Caribbean in order to "contain" Communism was not translated elsewhere in the continent into support for counterrevolution on the part of a usurping military. Ten years of recent Latin American history without a successful coup d'état, as well as a number of timely and efficient actions by Washington, are sufficient to discourage military adventurism.

Different reasons could be given for this apparent paradox. The first is the democratic excuse sought by the Reagan administration to gain acceptance by its allies to the south for the military policy that it is pursuing against Sandinista Nicaragua. A more profound and lasting reason could be that the American "decision makers" have understood after Cuba and Nicaragua that support for unpopular dictators (even if they are the moderate autocracies that are dear to Jeane Kirkpatrick), merely because they are strongly pro-American, is the best way to promote Communism. Finally, the democratic crusade of President Reagan does not seem to be simply a tactic or to be limited to the problems of the American Central American "backyard." The role of the United States in the eviction of Baby Doc, president-for-life of Haiti, and in the fall of the dictator Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines at the beginning of 1986, attests to the global and worldwide character of the antiauthoritarian policy of Washington. However, that new and subtle form of "containment" will not succeed unless it takes into account the economic impotence of the civilian and military dictators, and the mortal danger to the West that their unpopularity represents. The recent hardening of U.S. policy toward General Pinochet is part of that overall context. As is evident, the phenomenon is related to a complex and unique alliance of internal factors and international variables.

Never Again?

"Never Again" was the title of the report of the National Commission on Disappeared Persons that met in Argentina under the chairmanship of Ernesto Sabato. The title of that vision of hell echoed the slogans chanted by the Peronist youth in 1973,

that served as an inscription for that book. Does the extent of the horror and disaster constitute a guarantee against the return of the military state, or indeed is it true that "the belly is still fertile that produced the monster"?

There is no doubt that there is not today, nor has there been for several years, the political space either internally or internationally for a military offensive against the new democracies. However, the military are still there. They have repudiated none of their past actions and have in no way modified their values or their conduct. The democracies ask about their purpose. Should they transfer the responsibility for the struggle against subversion to the police as Raúl Alfonsín tried to do? If they settle frontier disputes by negotiation in order to limit arms purchases, what will the armies do? Disarming the paramilitary, returning the intelligence services of the state to civilian control is a priority task for demilitarization, but is institutional legitimacy sufficient in the face of force? Who will bear the arms of legality against plotters clinging to their political capital? The old Latin adage Quis custodiet ipsos custodes (Who will guard the guards?) has never been more true. It is not easy to reestablish the majesty and mystery of civilian power. As we said in the introduction to this book, how is it that armed men obey an unarmed sovereign?

If it is accepted that coups are not made only by the military and that the present situation is not very encouraging for military intervention, it is still true that they are awaiting the appropriate moment and do not seem to believe that a corner has been definitively turned regarding the military in government. The Argentine military celebrate their victory over subversion and publicly justify the "dirty war." The Uruguayan military leaders do not hesitate to recall that if the situation of 1970 were to be repeated, it would be their duty to intervene again. In Brazil, the civilian and military right raises its head to condemn the agrarian reform that is being carried out, as well as the legalization of the Communist parties, and it even criticizes the presence of a "leftist" minister in the Sarney government.^[12] More disturbing still, perhaps, is the advance of the military in one of the oldest democracies of the continent. In Colombia President Betancourt, who was elected in 1982,

ended martial law and the application of the security law and the militarist policies of his predecessor. He opened negotiations with the guerrillas with the purpose of reintegrating them into the constitutional life of the polity by way of an amnesty. The foreign policy of the new president broke with the pro-American attitude of President Julio Turbay. The active role of Colombia within the Contadora group and its cooperation with the "progressive" countries in the region also disturbed the military who had been conditioned by thirty years of struggle against Communist guerrillas. In January 1984 the minister of war, who was very critical of the policies of the president, was forced to resign. In November 1985 it was the army that made the decision to attack the Palace of Justice in Bogotá, which had been occupied by the M-19 guerrillas. The refusal to negotiate led to ninety-five deaths, including eleven justices of the supreme court, and to a considerable weakening of the Colombian president's support.

Nothing is ever permanent in the area of civilian supremacy. Democracy can only be a collective goal that implies a permanent state of tension. It does not follow as an automatic consequence of given objectives. Nevertheless, a coup d'état produces military interventions and a lasting period of civilian rule has a multiplier effect. We may even consider that the bitter memory of past dictatorships and the desire to live together will be the hidden sources of the "virtue" that, since Montesquieu, has been recognized as the basic principle of democracy.

San Salvador
April 1986