Accidental Socialism

The most socialized country in the Western Hemisphere is the Central American Republic of Guatemala. It is also one of the few Latin American republics (according to New York Timesman W. H. Lawrence--TIME, Jan. 13) without a formal Communist party. Guatemala's socialism started by accident of war. Today one-third of its agricultural produce is grown on land operated by the Government. The land--comprising one-fourth of the country's best plantations--fell under state control when the Government expropriated the German plantations in 1944.

Last week, tending his coffee plants in the shade of the banana trees, the average Guatemalan peon knew little enough of these facts. True, he had not seen a blond, German-speaking finquero in years, but the finquero had lived in Guatemala City and Juanito had seldom seen him anyway. More money jingled in Juanito's pocket (his wages were recently hiked from 5-c- to 50-c- a day), but higher prices had just about canceled out the raise. He had heard that model government houses, of cement and adobe, might soon be built on his finca. But his boss, the same finca manager who had been on the place for 35 years, was still there demanding work. Juanito swung his hoe.

Schoolmaster President. But in the capital the fincas' future was a sore political issue. Landowners, lawyers and businessmen complained bitterly about the turn of history that had put so much of the country's wealth in government hands. Some complained even more bitterly about an accident of politics--a 1944 revolution staged by a few young Army officers with a little help from the Left.

The revolution had put the government (and the prized fincas) in charge of a man who calls himself a "spiritual socialist."

Actually, squarejawed, mystical President Juan Jose Arevalo is no real socialist, but a warm-hearted man full of the necessity for improving the lot of his countrymen. His books, written while he was a university professor in Argentina, abound with denunciations of Communism as "the lowest form of social organization." He sits up to all hours drawing blueprints for school improvements. He discourses by the hour to such visitors as Cinemactor Tyrone Power on the urgent need for a Central American union (TIME, Sept. 30).

In two years five Agriculture Ministers have departed because of differences of policy. But professorial, impractical Juan Arevalo has taken no decisive step either to make socialism a permanent feature of his Government, or to abandon it and sell the seized lands back to private ownership.

Nevertheless, the Army stands by him. Five times his opponents have tried to overthrow him. Once his 31-year-old War Minister, Major Jacobo Arbenz, yanked him away from a wedding at 10 p.m. with the news that a revolution was due at 2. Arevalo protested that he still had a few more hours for the wedding party before confronting the revolution.

Thus, last week, the "spiritual socialist" President, who would have been lots happier teaching school, went right on managing Guatemala's accidentally socialist state--subject, of course, to the Army.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.