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.