Title: Communism: Latin America | Encyclopedia.com
Headings: Communism: Latin America
Communism: Latin America
Communism: Latin America
Anticommunism in Latin America
The Cuban Model
Guerrilla Insurgents
Democratic Transition
Conclusion
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Content: This feudal, medieval, Catholic, and patrimonial region translated these ideas into a movement against its hierarchical two-class agrarian-based system. Following the Great Depression of the 1930s, leftist political parties emerged that promoted a strong role for the state in directing change, a leftist ideology, and anti-American nationalism. The next two decades were marked by instability and conflict as authoritarian, democratic, and communist groups vied for power. In 1954 the United States intervened in Guatemala to overthrow a leftist regime that the United States said was communist. Four years later Fidel Castro led the successful Cuban Revolution. Cuba became the first openly socialist country in Latin America, the first to ally itself with the Soviet Union, and the first to openly turn its back on the United States. As a result, anticommunism in the region gained powerful U.S. military, political, and covert backing. Cuba added a new Marxist-Leninist "model" for Latin America and consequently made the prevention of "another Cuba" the central focus of United States policy. The United States chose time and again to support anticommunist military regimes over unstable democracies that believed in freedom for leftists. As workers, peasants, and guerrillas mobilized throughout the region, the traditional elite power-holders turned to their armies for support and received the backing of the United States, thereby ushering in twenty years of conflict and military – authoritarian rule.