Peru, 1939–1945

In Peru, Manuel Prado found that he needed to use only relatively mild repression to hold the lid on an increasingly moderate APRA. World War II engendered a period of unity and tranquillity in Peruvian politics, buttressed by an export boom. Broad national support for the democratic side in the war strengthened democratic practices domestically while discouraging armed civilian or military uprisings against the government. Prado's pro-United States administration enjoyed widespread, nonpartisan support from civilian and military sectors alike following the brief war with Ecuador in 1941. At this point even APRA rallied around the flag. After decreeing neutrality in September 1939, Peru severed relations with the Axis in January 1942, although it waited until 1945 to declare war.^[24]

The Prado administration outlawed and persecuted APRA, sometimes brandishing the quite unjustified accusation that the party was pro-Nazi. In fact, APRA supported the Allies, but it continually questioned U.S. aid to the Prado government in the form of Export-Import Bank loans and guaranteed purchases of the cotton crop. How, Haya de la Torre asked repeatedly, in the war for democracy could the United States embrace an undemocratic ally? Haya vainly lobbied the U.S. government to pressure the Prado administration to grant his party full rights as part of the Allies' international crusade against "totalitarianism." Although still opposed to the Prado government, APRA nevertheless restrained its criticisms of the administration in the interests of a broad consensus against fascism. Increasingly frustrated by his failures at home, Haya began to regard Chile's sturdy democratic system with envy.^[25]

World War II caused the Apristas to tone down their anti-imperialism and to behave more favorably toward the United States.^[26] They praised Roosevelt and Wallace for their commitment to end imperialism and to implement the "Four Freedoms." Their increasingly fervent opposition to fascism led the

Apristas to place growing emphasis on their own dedication to democracy, particularly in opposition to the oppression they faced in their home country. The Apristas continually drew analogies between the struggle led by the Allies against fascism and their own fight against dictatorship.

Although continuing to criticize economic exploitation by the United States, the Apristas softened their previous diatribes against international capitalism. In 1940 Haya de la Torre publicly acknowledged that the "twenty isolated and divided Indoamerican countries only subsist[ed] because the United States guarantee[d] their existence and sovereignty." Welcoming the Good Neighbor policy, he then called for "a democratic interamericanism purged of imperialism." Haya argued that Peru needed more capitalist development, fueled by foreign investment, before it could contemplate a transformation to socialism. Thus APRA echoed the Popular Front doctrine of its Communist adversaries, while remaining opposed to any pact with the Communist party because of that party's totalitarian orientations and principles. The Aprista program for industrialization and democracy aimed to create an alliance of the middle and working classes that would keep the former away from fascism and the latter away from communism. Like the Chilean Socialists the Apristas argued that the war demonstrated more than ever the wisdom of their program for state activism, for industrialization, and for the unification of Latin America as a counterweight to imperialist threats from Europe or the United States.^[27]

Attempting to consolidate its base for the future, APRA strengthened its hold on organized labor, which was now expanding in size and militancy along with the growth of war production and the increasing impact of inflation. In 1944 APRA joined the Communists in organizing the Confederation of Peruvian Workers (Confederación de Trabajadores Peruanos [CTP]). When APRA finally regained legal standing at the end of Prado's administration, it urged restraint on organized labor so as not to interfere with the party's prospects for electoral victory in 1945.

Thus APRA and the Communist party replicated the alliance between the United States and the Soviet Union by cooperating briefly to consolidate the union movement. In this endeavor they were aided by the international Confederation of Latin American Workers (Confederación de Trabajadores de América Latina [CTAL]) led by Vicente Lombardo Toledano in Mexico, which at this point enjoyed the backing of both the United States and the Soviet Union. Nevertheless, even though both parties sustained a similar

reformist vision for the worker movement, they remained bitter rivals. As the Apristas attacked the Communists, the latter replied with the accusation that APRA was dominated by cryptofascists.^[28]

From mid-1941 Prado received solid support from the Communists because he shared the stances they were taking on the war. In return for this support Prado relaxed persecution of the Communists and granted them seats in Congress. Subsequently, the Communists increased their following among unions but curtailed labor agitation while heeding Browder's exhortations to support national production for the war effort. The Communists argued that their cooperation in Peru flowed logically from the wartime alliance between the socialist and capitalist nations. In the 1945 election the newly legalized Communists threw their support to the candidacy of José Luis Bustamante, who also had the backing of APRA.^[29]