Arbenz's Land Reform and Social Culture in Guatemala

Paper Summary:

The following paper discusses the three major effects that land reform had on Guatemalan social culture. Questions such as: What groups, exactly, benefited from the reforms? What groups opposed them? What do the resulting conflicts over land reform reveal about the already existing character of Guatemalan society, and how that society partly transformed itself during the era before the "Liberation" by U.S. backed forces.\

From the paper:

"First, by redistributing land to, and encouraging greater political participation by, sectors of the Guatemalan population that had been harshly controlled and repressed for centuries, it awakened hope. Second, it brought to the fore many already simmering conflicts between different ethnic groups, classes and institutions in the countryside. Third, it invited a fanatical anti-Communist reaction by the landowners and the military that continues to shape Guatemala to the present day."

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