National Policy, Agrarian Reform, and the Corporate Community during the Guatemalan Revolution, 1944–1954

The ‘revolution’ from 1944 to 1954 prompted important changes in rural communities in Guatemala. The extension of many government services to rural areas for the first time, the involvement of political parties in village politics, and the growth of a rural labour federation all altered the political, economic, and social organization of rural Guatemala irrevocably. Changes became even more dramatic and more significant after 1950 with the growth of a national peasant league and the passage of a comprehensive agrarian reform law in 1952. Despite its importance, the changes that came to rural Guatemala with the revolution are not well understood and the shape of the‘revolution in the countryside’continues to be debated.