Victor Raul Haya de la Torre
Víctor Raúl Haya de la Torre (Trujillo, La Libertad, February 22, 1895-Lima, August 2, 1979) was a Peruvian lawyer, anthropologist, philosopher and politician, founder of the American Popular Revolutionary Alliance (APRA) and historic leader of the Peruvian Aprista Party, the longest-lived and most organically consistent in Peruvian politics. He is recognized as an important political ideologue in Latin America and a key figure in Peruvian and American politics. He gave his name to the Haya de la Torre Case, a public international law case on the right to political asylum.
Biography
Early Years
Víctor Raúl Haya de la Torre was born in Trujillo, the son of Raúl Edmundo Haya y de Cárdenas, also from Trujillo, and Zoila Victoria de la Torre y de Cárdenas, who were also cousins. His birth is commemorated as the Aprista Fraternity Day. He was the nephew of the politician Agustín de la Torre González.
Haya studied primary and secondary school at the San Carlos and San Marcelo Seminary School in Trujillo. He entered the Faculty of Letters of the National University of Trujillo, where he became a good friend of the prominent poet César Vallejo in the literature course; Both, along with other students and under the leadership of Antenor Orrego and José Eulogio Garrido, integrated the so-called "Trujillana bohemia", where he was known as "The Prince of Misfortune". among his companions. This intellectual group was later baptized as the Northern Group. Later, he continued his studies at the Universidad Mayor de San Marcos in Lima, where he studied Law. In 1917 he met the politician and writer Manuel González Prada and became a regular visitor to his house, and developed political concerns derived from the radicalism of said intellectual. In 1918, he was one of those who carried his coffin.
Student leader (1919-1923)
In January 1919, he was a member of the university commission that supported the workers' struggle for the establishment of the eight-hour work day. Contrary to popular belief, Haya de La Torre did not assume a leading role in the development of the strike, but rather had a role as a student leader. This episode marked the beginning of Haya's active participation in Peruvian politics, which began would last until the end of his days. In October of that same year, he was elected president of the Federation of Students of Peru. He was linked to all sectors of society. He led movements in favor of university reform in Peru and labor organizations. He participated in the first National Student Congress, held in Cusco (March 1920), where the project for the creation of the “popular universities” was approved, which in 1922 took shape under the name of “González Prada”.
He undertook numerous protests against the government of Augusto B. Leguía when the latter, around 1923, began planning his perpetuation in power (this regime would later be known as the Oncenio). One of the most significant of these protests was the campaign against the projected official consecration of the country to the Heart of Jesus, promoted by the Archbishop of Lima Emilio Lisson to legitimize the dictatorial regime. During the street protest, a student and a worker died (May 23, 1923), which became a symbol of worker-student unity. The consecration ceremony was finally suspended by the archbishop. Later, Haya edited the radical worker-student magazine Claridad, in collaboration with José Carlos Mariátegui, as the "organ of the free youth of Peru" and of the popular universities. In October 1923, when he was a professor at the Anglo-Peruvian school in Lima (now Colegio San Andrés) he was arrested and confined in the El Frontón prison, where he declared a hunger strike; six days after the strike he was boarded on the small steamer Denied and deported to Panama.
Exile and foundation of APRA
In Panama, Haya stayed for two weeks, before heading to Cuba. From there he went to Mexico, invited by José Vasconcelos, then Minister of Public Education, to collaborate as his secretary. He arrived in Mexico City on November 16, 1923. He then made contact with the Mexican Revolution, appreciating the socio-economic changes taking place in that country.
She contacted the Mexican students to encourage them to develop a student and labor fraternity at a continental level. It was precisely in Mexico City where, on May 7, 1924, he founded the American Popular Revolutionary Alliance. As can be deduced from his name, Haya de la Torre's initial political option sought to consolidate himself in a project for the entire so-called Indo-America .
In a simple ceremony, he presented the students of Mexico with the flag of Indo-America, on which occasion he said: «This flag that I give you, will wave first over the dreaming crowds of youth that are opening the way, and later it will be the peoples who agitate it in the trembling tumult of their struggles». Its doctrinal foundations were presented two years later, in the manifesto entitled What is the APRA? (What is APRA?) initially published in English in the magazine Labor Monthly of London, in December 1926, being later translated into Spanish and reproduced in various publications in Latin America. In said document, he exposes the five basic points of the Aprista doctrine:
1.- Action against U.S. imperialism;
2.- For the political unity of Latin America;
3.- Nationalization of land and industries;
4.- For the internationalization of the Panama Canal;
5.- For solidarity with all the oppressed peoples and classes of the world.
In September 1924, he traveled to Russia, where he came into contact with the Russian Revolution of 1917, which served as a source of inspiration for his ideology. He also traveled through Switzerland, Italy and France. In 1925 he settled in England, where, between 1926 and 1927, he studied Economics at the London School of Economics and Political Science and then Anthropology at the University of Oxford, where he would be a professor years later (in 1964)..
He devoted himself entirely to building a great movement that could represent the excluded masses of 'Indian America'. The Alliance had its first “section” in Paris (founded on January 22, 1927) and later committees were created in Buenos Aires, Mexico City, and La Paz. Apra was born as an eminently anti-oligarchic and anti-imperialist force. He was early linked to Marxism but clearly disagreed with communism for considering it a totalitarian political system. In 1927 he published his first book, entitled For the emancipation of Latin America, where he exposed the Aprista doctrine. In May 1928 he finished writing his book Anti-imperialism and APRA , a work that for economic reasons would not come to light until 1935.
In February 1927, he participated in the First Anti-imperialist Congress in Brussels, in which he raised the difference between APRA and communism. In November of that year he left Europe and returned to America, passing through New York before returning to Mexico. He then undertook a tour of Guatemala, El Salvador, Costa Rica and, again, Panama, being prevented from disembarking in the Canal Zone and, rather, exiled again to Europe on December 16, 1928. He spent some time in Berlin and in other cities of the old continent until June 1931. In the interim, the Leguía government fell (August 1930) and the Peruvian Aprista Party was founded in Lima, as the “Peruvian section” of APRA (September 21, 1930)..
Return to Peru. Presidential candidate in 1931
After having lived in exile as a consequence of his fight against the Oncenio de Leguía, Haya de la Torre returned to Peru, having been postulated as a presidential candidate in the general elections of 1931 by the then young Peruvian Aprista Party. He first arrived in Talara (July 12, 1931), was received in his hometown (July 25) and finally entered Lima (August 15), where before an immense crowd gathered in the Plaza de Acho, he exposed the minimum program of his party, in which he emphasized state intervention in the economy (August 23). The Aprista campaign introduced means never seen before in the elections in Peru: street painting in all the cities of the country; candidates called by their names —"Víctor Raúl", "Luis Alberto", etc.—; inclusion of non-voters —JAP (Juventud Aprista), CHAP (Chicos Aprista)—; its own anthem, which superimposed the lyrics to the music of the French Marseillaise —the Aprista Marseillaise—; a party flag identifying supporters; supporters called "comrades" holding up white handkerchiefs, and the famous "seasap" ("Only APRA will save Peru"). A kind of cult of the figure of Haya began within the party, who was at the same time "Víctor Raúl", "the boss", "the guide" and "the teacher".
According to the Electoral Tribunal that directed this election, Víctor Raúl ranked second behind Luis Miguel Sánchez Cerro (Revolutionary Union); however, Haya de la Torre and APRA never recognized the official results or the new government.
Imprisonment (1932-1933)
The government of Sánchez Cerro was authoritarian and repressive. Haya de la Torre was arrested. Popular protests increased throughout the country. In the city of Trujillo there was a failed Aprista armed uprising that led to clashes between the Aprista people and the armed forces. The insurrection was harshly repressed, hundreds of Apristas were arrested and an unknown number were shot in the Peruvian ruins of Chan Chan (on the outskirts of Trujillo). The so-called "Trujillo revolution", as it is known by the Apristas, was parallel to other revolutionary movements in various parts of the country (such as in Huaraz and Huari).
The 1933 Constitution outlawed all international parties. Based on this and invoking that the nation was in danger, the government declared the Aprista Party illegal in 1932. However, the president was assassinated with several shots at point-blank range on April 30, 1933 in the Campo de Marte in Lima. The perpetrator of the assassination was an Aprista militant named Abelardo Mendoza Leyva, who was killed on the spot, although the Aprista leadership could not be charged as the mastermind of the crime, due to lack of evidence.
The great underground (1933-1945)
After the death of Sánchez Cerro, General Óscar R. Benavides assumed power, who wanted to test a policy of “peace and harmony”. Haya was released on August 10, 1933, the other Aprista prisoners were also released from prison and many others returned from exile. But this opening would not last long. As a result of the Aprista conspiracy of El Agustino, in November 1934, the government reinitiated the anti-Aprista persecution. Thus began, for Haya and his supporters, the stage of "the great clandestinity", which would only end, officially, in 1945 (to worsen again between 1948 and 1956, under the Ochenio of Manuel Odría).
In the 1936 elections, the then clandestine APRA supported Luis Antonio Eguiguren who was elected; however, Congress invalidated the election, arguing that the votes in favor of Eguiguren came from militants of a banned party, an unheard-of argument, even more so if one takes into account that the vote was secret.
The National Democratic Front (1945-1948)
It is in 1945 when APRA returned to legality by participating in the National Democratic Front (FDN) coalition. Haya de la Torre and Marshal Óscar R. Benavides agreed to launch the Arequipa jurist José Luis Bustamante y Rivero as a candidate for the presidency for the FDN. On May 20, 1945, Haya reappeared in public, after ten years of being in hiding, when he delivered his "Reunion Speech" before a massive concentration of his supporters in Plaza San Martín.
The general elections were held on June 10 and the FDN won, resulting in Bustamante and Rivero being elected as Constitutional President of the Republic. Thanks to their electoral triumph, Haya and APRA controlled the bench of the Front and the Legislative Assembly as a whole; From there, they managed to approve various measures in favor of the Peruvian people, in addition to demanding greater speed for the reforms that Bustamante was trying to stop. They exerted vigorous pressure to achieve their objectives, provoking a reaction from the right which originated a period of misrule and anarchy that put the regime in check. Given this, the non-APRA officialist bench insisted on the Legislature causing its recess. Uprisings took place throughout the country, including the Aprista one held in Callao. Bustamante was forced to govern through decree laws and to ban APRA again while the oligarchy knocked on the door of the barracks. Finally, all this led to the coup by Manuel A. Odría, commanded by economic power. Then came, once again, the anti-Aprista repression.
Asylum in the Colombian embassy (1949-1954)
Haya de la Torre was persecuted and Bustamante was deported. Haya took refuge in the Colombian embassy in Lima, where he spent sixty-three months in asylum since the Odriista dictatorship refused to grant safe-conduct for him to leave the country, a situation that became an important reference case in International Law..
In 1954, Haya was authorized to leave Peru thanks to international pressure –he was a friend of various personalities, such as Albert Einstein–, and he published an article in Life magazine where he began to outline the "democratic anti-imperialism without empire". It is at that moment, according to some analysts, that Apra abandons its original flags and takes a conservative turn.
Coexistence (1956-1962)
It was not until 1956 that the three main presidential candidates ensured the return to legality of the Aprista party; By virtue of this offer, Haya de la Torre initially supported Hernando de Lavalle and later Manuel Prado y Ugarteche, a symbol of economic power, who was successful thanks to this support. It was when the country experienced a mega-coalition that supported the second Pradista government: Manuel Prado y Ugarteche himself, Víctor Raúl Haya de la Torre, Manuel A. Odría, Pedro G. Beltrán, Eudocio Ravines and Julio de la Piedra. It was, then, "a regime to which the Peruvian Aprista Party has supported with proven loyalty and determination. With this, Haya and his party —in its clearly anti-oligarchic beginnings— sustained Thus, a clearly oligarchic regime, probably hoping to come to power by legal means and already in exercise of this, make the appropriate reforms. Years later, when asked by Julio Cotler about the matter, Haya replied that "he had misjudged the situation and that he thought the oligarchy had more power than it really did".
Presidential candidate in 1962 and 1963
In the 1962 general elections, he ran for the second time as a presidential candidate, this time for the "Democratic Alliance," which grouped the Aprista Party with the Pradista Democratic Movement —which represented the largest sectors of the economic power-. Haya obtained 558,237 votes compared to 534,824 for Fernando Belaúnde Terry (Popular Action) and 48,404 for former President Manuel Odría (Odriísta National Union). Since he did not obtain the necessary percentage to be proclaimed president, the election was going to be decided by Congress to be installed on July 28, as established in the 1933 Constitution. Apparently, the Peruvian Armed Forces feared that Haya would come to power and they went to the Palace to report their disappointment; Informed of this by President Prado, Haya would have tried to make an alliance with Fernando Belaúnde but they reached an impasse, with which he could only consolidate one with Manuel A. Odría for which he would cede the Aprista votes to Odrismo. The Armed Forces denounced fraud in ten departments and also ruled against the virtual president Odría (and not against Haya, according to the position of the historian Percy Cayo Córdoba). Finally, on July 18, the first institutional coup d'état by the armed forces took place, headed by General Ricardo Pérez Godoy, who overthrew the government of Manuel Prado and Ugarteche, declared the elections null and installed a military government junta.. The coup was supported by Acción Popular and later by APRA. Already in the general elections of 1963, Fernando Belaúnde Terry won with 39% against Haya's 34%.
The pro-Odriista coalition (1963-1968)
During the years of Belaúnde's government, Haya and his party remained in the opposition together with Manuel Odría, forming the APRA-UNO coalition, which, due to its number, controlled the Legislature and strongly opposed the Belaundista party. They opposed the measures proposed by the government, causing the first agrarian reform law to have a minimal scope: Parliament declared 'efficient' and dedicated to export crops, decided that the affectations in backward areas should be supervised by a Legislative office and systematically cut the resources destined to government bonds to pay for expropriations; the first Agrarian Reform only expropriated 3% of the expropriable lands and benefited only 13,500 families. Likewise, the National Congress of APRO-Odriísta majority, censured six cabinets and almost one hundred ministers of the government of Fernando Belaunde.
However, the end of the AP-DC coalition in 1967 due to internal disagreements; and the rapprochement on the part of the pro-government bench to the Aprista Party, would end the alliance and start the APRA-Popular Action coalition in 1968. An alliance that would be cut short by the coup d'état at the end of the same year.
President of the Constituent Assembly
After the arrival of the military government of Juan Velasco Alvarado, political parties –among them APRA– are outlawed and their popular bases persecuted. However, in 1970, on Fraternity Day, he claimed intellectual paternity for the reforms carried out by the military, protesting because they did not recognize the intellectual debt they owed him: "We must be dissatisfied because it is not way, quickly and furtively, to carry these ideas forward and hide them, especially hiding their origin and origin".
Haya de la Torre led the popular pressure exerted against the government of Francisco Morales Bermúdez so that the military would return to their barracks and restore democracy. A Constituent Assembly had been announced on July 28, 1976, but elections were held only in 1978. The Aprista Party had the first majority, followed by the Popular Christian Party. Haya de la Torre was elected with the highest vote as constituent deputy (1,038,516 preferential votes) and was unanimously appointed to serve as president of the Constituent Assembly. In a symbolic act, his salary for holding office was only 1 sol de oro. The same day the assembly was installed, Haya de la Torre marked his clear independence from the military regime:
"This Assembly embodies the Constituent Power and the Constituent Power is the supreme expression of the people as such, and the first Power of the State. This Power does not admit conditions, limitations or parameters; it does not recognize powers above itself because it is the undisputed and legitimate fruit of popular sovereignty. On a day like today, 157 years ago, Peru declared its independence based on the general will of the peoples; on 28 July 1978, based on the same general will of the peoples clearly expressed in the June elections, without more limitations than those which it itself wants to give, it is proclaimed free and autonomous. (...) It is obvious that the search for harmonies and coincidences that offer the constitutional text a broad consensus does not in any way mean the abandonment of ideological positions or of ideas or programs; moreover, a constituent is natural for the confrontation of positions, a political approach of various paths; a constituent does not legislate for a party or for a sector, but for the whole people. (...) if the defective 1933 Constitution, with an obsolete style and spirit, is the last constitution of the twentieth century; which is now to be the first constitution of the twenty-first century".Hague - 28 July 1978
On July 12, 1979, Víctor Raúl Haya de la Torre signed the 1979 Constitution shortly before his death.
Private life
Recently, there has been a revival of interest in unraveling the intimate life of the APRA patriarch. Different novel biographies about him have been published, as well as two books that delve into his unknown private life: Las mujeres de Haya/ Eight stories of passion and rebellion by María Luz Díaz Paredes, and Call it love, if you want by Toño Angulo Daneri.
Angulo has documented the testimony of the French poet and Peruvianist André Coyne, a scholar of César Vallejo and César Moro, a disciple and friend of Haya. He recounts that Haya was always surrounded by young people. Coyne in a recent visit to the country for the Vallejiano centenary confirmed his statements.
On the other hand, Díaz examines the leader's relationships with the main women in his life. Thus, he reviews the figure of her mother, Zoila Victoria de la Torre, and her sister, Ana Lucía. She says the book: & # 34;In 1907 (Ana Lucía) she married the wealthy Chilean industrialist Marcial Acharán Smith. It is said that the favorite nephew (Haya) was upset with the news. The boy Raulito, already 12 years old, had fallen in love with his aunt". which Díaz describes as a platonic love that may have led to something more with this married lady. He says about it in the same book: & # 34; Anita seemed like a trophy to be disputed. Her beauty and her heritage made her desirable and she was on everyone's lips. Víctor Raúl would already have troubled ideas in his mind. He was shocked. For her, he was only an acquaintance of Andrés, so she managed to try to get close to him". In addition, the aforementioned book reviews the alleged relations of the Aprista chief with Emilia González Orbegoso, with Alice Hoehler and Marilucha Garcia Montero. In any case, both accounts have filled in the gaps with fiction and cannot be taken as historical sources. Much less as biographies.
Death
Víctor Raúl Haya de la Torre died on August 2, 1979 in Villa Mercedes, his home located in the district of Ate. On his deathbed he was awarded the Order El Sol del Perú, in the degree of Grand Cross. Several party leaders were present at his funeral, including Luis Alberto Sánchez Sánchez, Ramiro Prialé, Andrés Townsend, Javier Valle Riestra and Armando Villanueva, as well as a huge crowd that accompanied the transfer of his remains from Lima to his hometown. He was buried in the General Cemetery of Miraflores in the city of Trujillo. His coffin rests under a large rock with the phrase & # 34; Here lies the light & # 34; .
Thought
Haya de la Torre corresponds to one of the most particular, evolutionary and complex ideological processes in the history of Peru. The set of his writings, pronouncements and positions make him a heterogeneous and even contradictory character, his message has lent itself to different and diverse interpretations. According to general Aprista concepts, Haya applied historical materialism to the review of the history and objective conditions of Latin America, deducing from this an original theory of political action to lead said societies towards socialism; On a theoretical level, his thought, although close to Marxism at first, will be different and even contrary to Leninism regarding the socialist strategy in colonial or peripheral societies.
Haya postulates that imperialism is the maximum expression of capitalism, which is, in turn, the mode of economic production superior to anything the world knew. By virtue of which, he concludes that capitalism is an inevitable phase in the process of contemporary civilization. Capitalism, according to Haya de la Torre, will not be eternal and has contradictions within itself that will finally end with it, but for that to happen, it must fully evolve, that is, exist and mature. The proletariat of the backward Latin American countries is too young to make the great revolution that surpasses capitalism.
He continues to indicate that imperialism is the last phase of capitalism in developed countries, but in underdeveloped countries, such as Peru, it is the first phase. In these countries, it is not a stage of advanced industrialization but rather the exploitation of raw materials, because it is the type of production that the developed world, from which the imperialist capitals come, is interested in doing there; not to the citizens of these countries. For this reason, he says, its initial development is slow and incomplete. Thus, America's problem is political: how to emancipate itself from the yoke of imperialism without retarding its progress. As long as it is about America and not Europe, as long as it came to capitalism through imperialism, it has to adopt its own aptitude for confronting the problem.
Víctor Raúl estimates that it will be the three classes oppressed by imperialism that will advance this stage of society: the young industrial proletariat, the peasantry and the impoverished middle classes. With the alliance of these classes in power, the State will no longer be an instrument of imperialism but a defender of the classes it represents. Thus, they will take from the developed countries what interests them and they will negotiate with them as equals, not subjugated, because they need each other.
Haya de la Torre has an Americanist vision of doing politics. He believes that what he calls & # 34; Indoamerica & # 34;, he has to integrate and fight together to move forward. That is why his party has a name that includes the concept of the American alliance. In short, he says that we must create the anti-imperialist resistance in America and give it the form of a political organization. This is what Haya considers that Apra should be.
Currently, the reinterpretations and analysis of "hayism" from inside and outside the Aprista Party are growing. The most notable recent work on the subject is by the former leader of the PAP and former President of Peru, Alan García Pérez. García has recently published The constructive revolution of Aprismo/Theory and practice of modernity (Lima, 2008); the book outlines an ideological history of APRA with a view to explaining the current perspective of APRA at this time and its governmental expression. The work tries to show a Haya de la Torre concurrent with a process of intellectual and political maturation; further explains that during the period 1970-1990, Apra "was more Velasquista than Hayista". García says that his party made a mistake when interpreting the military revolution as the "realization of what the Apra had proposed since 1931", which would have led them to "adopt the nationalizations as their own, the collectivist model in agriculture and state management of trade in many services and goods", which were concepts "totally alien to Haya's ideology and his dialectical work& #34;. García's thesis has been refuted, or at least discussed, by various Peruvian intellectuals such as Hugo Neira, Sinesio López, Nelson Manrique and Martín Tanaka.
Works
- Two letters from Haya de la Torre (1923)
- For the Emancipation of Latin America (Buenos Aires, 1927)
- Ideario y acción aprista (Buenos Aires, 1930)
- Theory and tactic of the aprism (1931)
- Impressions of imperialist England and Soviet Russia (Buenos Aires, 1932)
- The plan of the aprism (Guayaquil, 1932)
- Building the aprism (Buenos Aires, 1932); Aprist policy (1933)
- Where's Indoamerica going? (Santiago de Chile 1935, 1936 and 1954)
- Anti-imperialism and APRA (Santiago de Chile, 1936, and several later editions)
- Ex-combatants and unemployed (Santiago de Chile, 1936)
- The truth of the rush (1940)
- Continental defense (Buenos Aires 1942; Lima, 1946)
- Letters to Prisoners (1946)
- And after the war, what? (1946)
- Space-time-historic (1948)
- Thirty years of aprismo (Mexico, 1954)
- Message from Nordic Europe (Buenos Aires, 1956)
- Toynbee in the face of history problems (Buenos Aires, 1957).
Legacy
Haya de la Torre left a great legacy in the history of Peruvian politics. His thoughts that led to the founding of the Aprista Party, maintains an unusual validity, being APRA the oldest living party in Peru. And his ideas significantly influenced historic social democratic parties in other Latin American nations such as Venezuela's Acción Democrática.
Some of his phrases have remained in popular culture:
"Neither with Washington nor Moscow, only Aprism will save Peru!"
"Stop with Freedom!"
"Young man, get ready for action and not for pleasure."
"The one who knows little, learns, the one who knows a lot, teaches."
"Sing and sing, that the song is of free and optimistic men."
"Faith, Union, Discipline and Action."
Every February 22, the members of the Aprista Party meet, celebrate and commemorate the day of the birth of their leader, which is also their Fraternity Day. The flag of the United States of Indo-America that he created has served as inspiration for the flag of the Union of South American Nations.
From 1988 to 1991, a 50,000 Intis bill circulated in Peru with the photograph of Víctor Raúl Haya de la Torre which was taken by the artist Baldomero Pestana.
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