Preventive Penal Law Against Communism

Last updated

The Preventive Penal Law Against Communism (Spanish : Ley Preventiva Penal Contra el Comunismo) was a Guatemalan decree passed by the military junta of Carlos Castillo Armas on 24 August 1954. The decree was preceded by the formation of the National Committee of Defense Against Communism. The Preventive Penal Law Against Communism officially prohibited any kind of communist activity and established a blacklist of active communists.

Around 70,000 Guatemalans engaging or suspected of engaging in communist activities were blacklisted under the law. Another 8,000 were arrested, and an estimated 8,000-10,000 were forced into exile. [1] This decree was also used to suspend habeas corpus.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">McCarthyism</span> Phenomenon in the US consisting of making unfounded accusations of subversion, communism and treason

McCarthyism is the practice of making false or unfounded accusations of subversion and treason, especially when related to anarchism, communism and socialism, and especially when done in a public and attention-grabbing manner.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jacobo Árbenz</span> President of Guatemala from 1951 to 1954

Juan Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán was a Guatemalan military officer and politician who served as the 25th President of Guatemala. He was Minister of National Defense from 1944 to 1950, and the second democratically elected President of Guatemala, from 1951 to 1954. He was a major figure in the ten-year Guatemalan Revolution, which represented some of the few years of representative democracy in Guatemalan history. The landmark program of agrarian reform Árbenz enacted as president was very influential across Latin America.

A Red Scare is the promotion of a widespread fear of a potential rise of communism, anarchism or other leftist ideologies by a society or state. It is often characterized as political propaganda. The term is most often used to refer to two periods in the history of the United States which are referred to by this name. The First Red Scare, which occurred immediately after World War I, revolved around a perceived threat from the American labor movement, anarchist revolution, and political radicalism. The Second Red Scare, which occurred immediately after World War II, was preoccupied with the perception that national or foreign communists were infiltrating or subverting American society and the federal government. The name refers to the red flag as a common symbol of communism.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carlos Castillo Armas</span> President of Guatemala from 1954 to 1957

Carlos Castillo Armas was a Guatemalan military officer and politician who was the 28th president of Guatemala, serving from 1954 to 1957 after taking power in a coup d'état. A member of the right-wing National Liberation Movement (MLN) party, his authoritarian government was closely allied with the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Juan José Arévalo</span> 24th President of Guatemala

Juan José Arévalo Bermejo was a Guatemalan professor of philosophy who became Guatemala's first democratically elected president in 1945. He was elected following a popular uprising against the United States-backed dictator Jorge Ubico that began the Guatemalan Revolution. He remained in office until 1951, surviving 25 coup attempts. He did not contest the election of 1951, instead choosing to hand over power to Jacobo Árbenz. As president, he enacted several social reform policies, including an increase in the minimum wage and a series of literacy programs. He also oversaw the drafting of a new constitution in 1945.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1954 Guatemalan coup d'état</span> Covert CIA operation in Guatemala

The 1954 Guatemalan coup d'état was the result of a CIA covert operation code-named PBSuccess. It deposed the democratically elected Guatemalan President Jacobo Árbenz and ended the Guatemalan Revolution of 1944–1954. It installed the military dictatorship of Carlos Castillo Armas, the first in a series of U.S.-backed authoritarian rulers in Guatemala.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Julio César Méndez Montenegro</span> Guatemalan politician; President of Guatemala (1915-1996)

Julio César Méndez Montenegro was the Revolutionary Party President of Guatemala from July 1, 1966 to July 1, 1970. Mendez was elected on a platform promising democratic reforms and the curtailment of military power. The only civilian to occupy Guatemala's presidency during the long period of military rule between 1954 and 1986. Mendez had assumed the presidency under a pact in July 1966 that gave the armed forces carte blanche with respect to internal security matters and an effective veto over governmental policy. Nevertheless, his election and swearing in was considered a major turning point for the long military-led Guatemala. He was the first cousin of César Montenegro Paniagua whose kidnapping, torture and murder during the Julio César Méndez presidency is rumored to have been undertaken with presidential sanction.

Operation PBFortune, also known as Operation Fortune, was a covert United States operation to overthrow the democratically elected Guatemalan President Jacobo Árbenz in 1952. The operation was authorized by U.S. President Harry Truman and planned by the Central Intelligence Agency. The United Fruit Company had lobbied intensively for the overthrow because land reform initiated by Árbenz threatened its economic interests. The US also feared that the government of Árbenz was being influenced by communists.

Decree 900, also known as the Agrarian Reform Law, was a Guatemalan land-reform law passed on June 17, 1952, during the Guatemalan Revolution. The law was introduced by President Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán and passed by the Guatemalan Congress. It redistributed unused land greater than 90 hectares in area to local peasants, compensating landowners with government bonds. Land from at most 1,700 estates was redistributed to about 500,000 individuals—one-sixth of the country's population. The goal of the legislation was to move Guatemala's economy from pseudo-feudalism into capitalism. Although in force for only eighteen months, the law had a major effect on the Guatemalan land-reform movement.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Communist Control Act of 1954</span> 1954 U.S. law criminalizing membership in communist organizations and supporting them

The Communist Control Act of 1954 is an American law signed by President Dwight Eisenhower on August 24, 1954, that outlaws the Communist Party of the United States and criminalizes membership in or support for the party or "Communist-action" organizations and defines evidence to be considered by a jury in determining participation in the activities, planning, actions, objectives, or purposes of such organizations.

The National Committee of Defense Against Communism was a committee formed on 19 July 1954 in Guatemala by president Carlos Castillo at the request of the United States Central Intelligence Agency. The Committee's primary goal was to fight alleged threats to the government of Guatemala by persons the Committee named as Communist subversives.

Communist crimes is a legal definition used in the Polish Penal Code. The concept of a communist crime is also used more broadly internationally, and is employed by human rights non-governmental organizations as well as government agencies such as the Unitas Foundation, the Institute for Information on the Crimes of Communism, the Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes, the Institute for the Investigation of Communist Crimes in Romania, and the Office for the Documentation and the Investigation of the Crimes of Communism.

Operation PBHistory was a covert operation carried out in Guatemala by the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). It followed Operation PBSuccess, which led to the overthrow of Guatemalan President Jacobo Árbenz in June 1954 and ended the Guatemalan Revolution. PBHistory attempted to use documents left behind by Árbenz's government and by organizations related to the communist Guatemalan Party of Labor to demonstrate that the Guatemalan government had been under the influence of the Soviet Union, and to use those documents to obtain further intelligence that would be useful to US intelligence agencies. It was an effort to justify the overthrow of the elected Guatemalan government in response to the negative international reactions to PBSuccess. The CIA also hoped to improve its intelligence resources about communist parties in Latin America, a subject on which it had little information.

The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has a rich history of intervention over many decades in Guatemala, a country in Central America. Guatemala is bordered by the North Pacific Ocean and the Gulf of Honduras. The four bordering countries are Mexico, El Salvador, Honduras and Belize. Due to the proximity of Guatemala to the United States, the fear of the Soviet Union creating a beachhead in Guatemala created panic in the United States government during the Cold War. The CIA undertook Operation PBSuccess to overthrow the democratically elected Jacobo Árbenz in the 1954 Guatemalan coup d'état. Carlos Castillo Armas replaced him as a military dictator. Guatemala was subsequently ruled by a series of military dictatorships for decades. Between 1962 and 1996, Left-wing guerrillas fought the U.S. backed military governments during the Guatemalan Civil War.

Capital punishment in Romania was abolished in 1990, and has been prohibited by the Constitution of Romania since 1991.

Anti-communism is political and ideological opposition to communism. Organized anti-communism developed after the 1917 October Revolution in the Russian Empire, and it reached global dimensions during the Cold War, when the United States and the Soviet Union engaged in an intense rivalry. Anti-communism has been an element of movements which hold many different political positions, including conservatism, fascism, liberalism, nationalism, social democracy, libertarianism, or the anti-Stalinist left. Anti-communism has also been expressed in philosophy, by several religious groups, and in literature. Some well-known proponents of anti-communism are former communists. Anti-communism has also been prominent among movements resisting communist governance.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hollywood blacklist</span> Mid-20th century banning of suspected Communists from US entertainment

The Hollywood blacklist was an entertainment industry blacklist, broader than just Hollywood, put in effect in the mid-20th century in the United States during the early years of the Cold War. The blacklist involved the practice of denying employment to entertainment industry professionals believed to be or to have been Communists or sympathizers. Actors, screenwriters, directors, musicians, and other American entertainment professionals were barred from work by the studios.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Guatemalan Revolution</span> Popular uprising that overthrew dictator Jorge Ubico in 1944

The Guatemalan Revolution was the period in Guatemalan history between the popular uprising that overthrew dictator Jorge Ubico in 1944 and the United States-orchestrated coup d'état in 1954 that overthrew the democratically elected President Jacobo Árbenz. This period has also been called the Ten Years of Spring, highlighting the only years of representative democracy in Guatemala from 1930 until the end of the civil war in 1996, which saw the implementation of a program of social, political, and especially agrarian reform that was enormously influential across Latin America.

<i>Counterattack</i> (newsletter) Extreme-right publication (1947–1955)

Counterattack was a weekly subscription-based, anti-communist, mimeographed newsletter, which ran from 1947 to 1955 and was published by a "private, independent organization" of the same name and started by three ex-Federal Bureau of Investigation agents.

The Fund for the Republic (1951–1959) was an organization created by the Ford Foundation and dedicated to protecting freedom of speech and other civil liberties in the United States. In 1959, the Fund moved from New York City to Santa Barbara, California, and changed its name to the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions (CSDI).

References

  1. Hey, Hilde (1995). Gross Human Rights Violations: A Search for Causes : A Study of Guatemala and Costa Rica. The Hague, The Netherlands: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers (Klower Law International). p. 34. ISBN   978-90-411-0146-4.

See also