The Last Colonial Massacre: Latin America in the Cold War, Updated Edition by Greg Grandin (PDF)

Description

After decades of bloodshed and political terror, many lament the rise of the left in Latin America. Since the triumph of Castro, politicians and historians have accused the left there of rejecting democracy, embracing communist totalitarianism, and prompting both revolutionary violence and a right-wing backlash. Through unprecedented archival research and gripping personal testimonies, Greg Grandin powerfully challenges these views in this classic work. In doing so, he uncovers the hidden history of the Latin American Cold War: of hidebound reactionaries holding on to their power and privilege; of Mayan Marxists blending indigenous notions of justice with universal ideas of equality; and of a United States supporting new styles of state terror throughout the region.With Guatemala as his case study, Grandin argues that the Latin American Cold War was a struggle not between political liberalism and Soviet communism but two visions of democracy—one vibrant and egalitarian, the other tepid and unequal—and that the conflict’s main effect was to eliminate homegrown notions of social democracy. Updated with a new preface by the author and an interview with Naomi Klein, The Last Colonial Massacre is history of the highest order—a work that will dramatically recast our understanding of Latin American politics and the role of the United States in the Cold War and beyond.“This work admirably explains the process in which hopes of democracy were brutally repressed in Guatemala and its people experienced a civil war lasting for half a century.”—International History Review “A richly detailed, humane, and passionately subversive portrait of inspiring reformers tragically redefined by the Cold War as enemies of the state.”—Journal of American History

User’s Reviews

Editorial Reviews: About the Author Greg Grandin is assistant professor of history at New York University. He is the author of The Blood of Guatemala: A History of Race and Nation.

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐Great read. Dr. Grandin is both knowledgeable and concise. The depth of research and cohesiveness throughout this book is impeccable. I highly recommend this book to anyone who is looking to understand the effects of Latin America and the Cold war.

⭐Truth

⭐Many books discuss the violence and political turmoil in Guatemala. What Grandin has done is add a wonderfully distinctive and long-overdue Mayan voice to a terrible history.He describes the May 29, 1978 massacre of approximately 100 Q’eqchi’ Indians in Panzos, Alta Verapaz. Grandin profiles a number of Q’eqchi’ throughout his book culminating in Mama Maquin, the Q’eqchi’ woman leader who was killed attempting to deliver a letter of protest to the local governmental authorities in Panzos.Grandin lays the foundation for the 1978 massacre by going back to the critical events of the 1950s Arbenz adminstration. He describes how the Q’eqchi’ were increasingly dispossessed of their land, going from 97 Q’eqchi’ in 1888 owning fincas, or large plantations, to just 9 in 1930 and then dropping to none in 1949. (p. 26) After World War I, German immigrants to the Alta Verapaz acquired more and more land. Grandin notes: “Swastikas hung from municipal buildings and flew above German plantations.” (pages 24-25.)Perhaps the gem of Grandin’s book is a quotation from a portion of Arbenz’s sole campaign stop to the Alta Verapaz during the election of 1950. The speech was translated into Q’eqchi’ word for word as it was given by Arbenz. Here is an excerpt:”From the time when Alta Verapaz was populated by only the brave Q’eqchi’ race until this moment…from the exploitation of the conquistadores’ whip to the infamous exploitation of the plantation onwers…they have taken your property, your liberties, your rights…Alta Verapaz workers are the most exploited in all the country. The struggle of the reactionaries, of these ‘friends of order’ who scowl at us on the street, is to impose this regime on the whole republic. We, in contrast, want to destroy this system. It is not only agrarian reform that will resolve the problem. We need to treat Indians justly..with respect like human beings. We promise you better houses and a better salary. We promise you a little more justice.” (p. 44.)Arbenz won the election and instituted land reform that placed hundereds of thousands of acres of previously fallow land in the hands of Mayans. He was deposed in a CIA-sponsored coup in 1954. Grandin shows how that tragic loss of democracy led to the Panzos massacre in 1978, which set the fuse for the explosion of the long-simmering guerilla war and the genocidal military campaign in 1982 of President Rios Montt, who was praised at time by Ronald Reagan as getting a “bum rap” on human rights and being a man of “great integrity.”Grandin’s book for the first time tells the story of the Q’eqchi’ and their quest for justice. Kudos to him.

⭐- originated in Washington, not Moscow, and was far more bloody and destructive than in eastern Europe. Grandin’s tour de force of the cold war’s hot-blooded reign in Latin America focuses on Guatemala, where it began with the emergence from dictatorship in the “democratic spring” of 1944, and ended with the US-backed return to business as usual in 1954. The cynical rhetoric employed in Guatemala and elsewhere was identical to Moscow’s in its own sphere, and makes this book a revealing comparison to Constantine Pleshakov’s “There is no Freedom Without Bread” (reviewed elsewhere.)The essential origin of the modern cold war began, of course, in Russia in 1917, when the propetyless classes began entering the political sphere demanding forms of democracy relevant to themselves, going beyond the middle class interpretation of constitutional rights and civil society to give democracy a material basis. Ever since, confused liberal reformers have recoiled in horror and sided with counter-revolution, leaving Lenin or Castro to harvest the fruits of mass movements they refuse to touch or lead. In Latin America, this spectacle of “democrats” fearing democracy reaped the grisliest harvest in formal peacetime, and remains unknown to most North Americans for whom Solidarity and Lech Walesa are household names.Grandin’s style is anecdotal, as a previous reviewer states, and somewhat rambling; but he is assuming a familiarity with the subject that may be a stretch for the general reader precisely because Latin America in the cold war is terra incognito north of the Rio Grande. He is right to question the notion of “radicalism as the cause of radicalization,” as American/conservative academics are prone to do to explain why this movement or how that leader “went Communist;” seeing Latin Americans as “children of Cain” out to kill for killing’s sake. But while it’s essential to focus on the context of the cold war as producing this carnage, it’s also true that this period dovetails with a history of state and insurrectional violence in the region. Like eastern Europe, repression did not just descend from the sky after 1944, but rather world politics outside stimulated and exploited old desires for new deals and the traditional reaction to them by those holding the cards.Of all the books on Guatemala and Latin America in this period, one of the better ones.

⭐Thank you

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