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Peru Impact of World War I
The Civilistas, however, were unable to manage the new
social
forces that their policies unleashed. This first became
apparent
in 1912 when the millionaire businessman Guillermo
Billinghurst
(1912-14)--the reform-minded, populist former mayor of
Lima--was
able to organize a general strike to block the election of
the
official Civilista presidential candidate and force his
own
election by Congress. During his presidency, Billinghurst
became
embroiled in an increasingly bitter series of conflicts
with
Congress, ranging from proposed advanced social
legislation to
settlement of the Tacna-Arica dispute. When Congress
opened
impeachment hearings in 1914, Billinghurst threatened to
arm the
workers and forcibly dissolve Congress. This provoked the
armed
forces under Colonel Oscar Raimundo Benavides (1914-15,
1933-36,
and 1936-39) to seize power.
The coup marked the beginning of a long-term alignment
of the
military with the oligarchy, whose interests and
privileges it
would defend up until the 1968 revolution of General Juan
Velasco
Alvarado (1968-75). It was also significant because it not
only
ended almost two decades of uninterrupted civilian rule,
but,
unlike past military interventions, was more institutional
than
personalist in character. Benavides was a product of
Piérola's
attempt to professionalize the armed forces under the
tutelage of
a French military mission, beginning in 1896, and
therefore was
uncomfortable in his new political role. Within a year, he
arranged new elections that brought José de Pardo y
Barreda
(1904-1908, 1915-19) to power.
A new round of economic problems, deepening social
unrest,
and powerful, new ideological currents toward the end of
World
War I, however, converged to bring a generation of
Civilista rule
to an end in 1919. The war had a roller coaster effect on
the
Peruvian economy. First, export markets were temporarily
cut off,
provoking recession. Then, when overseas trade was
restored,
stimulating demand among the combatants for Peru's primary
products, an inflationary spiral saw the cost of living
nearly
double between 1913 and 1919.
This inflation had a particularly negative impact on
the new
working classes in Lima and elsewhere in the country. The
number
of workers had grown sharply since the turn of the
century--by
one count rising from 24,000, or 17 percent of the
capital's
population in 1908, to 44,000, or 20 percent of the
population in
1920. Similar growth rates occurred outside of Lima in the
export
enclaves of sugar (30,000 workers), cotton (35,000), oil
(22,500), and copper. The Cerro de Pasco copper mine alone
had
25,500 workers. The growth and concentration of workers
was
accompanied by the spread of anarchic ideas before and
during the
war years, making the incipient labor movement
increasingly
militant. Violent strikes erupted on sugar plantations,
beginning
in 1910, and the first general strike in the country's
history
occurred a year later.
Radical new ideologies further fueled the growing
social
unrest in the country at the end of the war. The ideas of
the
Mexican and Russian revolutions, the former predating the
latter,
quickly spread radical new doctrines to the far corners of
the
world, including Peru. Closer to home, the
indigenista
(Indigenist) movement increasingly captured the
imagination of a
new generation of Peruvians, particularly urban,
middle-class
mestizos who were reexamining their roots in a changing
Peru.
Indigenismo (Indigenism) was promoted by a group of
writers and artists who sought to rediscover and celebrate
the
virtues and values of Peru's glorious Incan past.
Awareness of
the indigenous masses was heightened at this time by
another wave
of native uprisings in the southern highlands. They were
caused
by the disruption and dislocation of traditional native
American
communities brought about by the opening of new
international
markets and reorganization of the wool trade in the
region.
All of these social, economic, and intellectual trends
came
to a head at the end of the Pardo administration. In
1918-19
Pardo faced an unprecedented wave of strikes and labor
mobilization that was joined by student unrest over
university
reform. The ensuing worker-student alliance catapulted a
new
generation of radical reformers, headed by Víctor Raúl
Haya de la
Torre--a young, charismatic student at San Marcos
University--and
José Carlos Mariátegui--a brilliant Lima journalist who
defended
the rights of the new, urban working class--to national
prominence.
Data as of September 1992
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