“The Most Precious Fruit of the Revolution”: The Guatemalan Agrarian Reform, 1952–54

IN his 1953 address to the Guatemalan congress, President Jacobo Arbenz Guzman declared, "The Agrarian Reform Law begins the economic transformation of Guatemala; it is the most precious fruit of the revolution and the fundamental base of the destiny of the nation as a new country." He went on to affirm that the law formed "a part of the heavy debt the ruling class and governors have contracted with the humble people, with people of the field with cheap cotton shirts and palm-leaf sombreros who do not have shoes, or medicine, or money, or education, or land."'I Many of the young Guatemalan politicians who struggled to implement economic, social, and political reform during the decade of the revolution from 1944 to 1954 realized that in their country everything ultimately revolves around the land. In 1950, over two-thirds of the population depended on agriculture for their living. These politicians understood, if often only vaguely, that decades of land dispossession had helped bind the majority of the population into depths of poverty. They also realized that none of the ideals of the revolution could succeed without an alteration in the basic structure of land tenure in the country. All other legislation during the revolution paled before substantial agrarian reform. However, agrarian reform faced significant opposition in Guatemala, and not just from large landowners. Agrarian reform as envisioned by Arbenz entailed a substantial alteration in both economic and political power along with land reallocation. Effecting this alteration provoked a storm of opposition to both the process of agrarian reform and the government. Eventually, it was the agrarian reform, the most precious fruit and the most indispensable measure of the revolution, that led to the overthrow of the Arbenz administration and the collapse of the revolution. Despite the importance of the agrarian reform, Decree goo (which