Jacobo Arbenz in the context of Ministry of Defence (Guatemala)

⭐ Core Definition: Jacobo Arbenz

Juan Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán (Spanish: [xwaŋ xaˈkoβo ˈaɾβens ɣusˈman]; 14 September 1913 – 27 January 1971) 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, before he became 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.

Árbenz was born in 1913 to a wealthy family, son of a Swiss German father and a Guatemalan mother. He graduated with high honors from a military academy in 1935, and served in the army until 1944, quickly rising through the ranks. During this period, he witnessed the violent repression of agrarian laborers by the United States-backed dictator Jorge Ubico, and was personally required to escort chain-gangs of prisoners, an experience that contributed to his progressive views. In 1938, he met and married María Vilanova, who was a great ideological influence on him, as was José Manuel Fortuny, a Guatemalan communist. In October 1944, several civilian groups and progressive military factions led by Árbenz and Francisco Arana rebelled against Ubico's repressive policies. In the elections that followed, Juan José Arévalo was elected president, and began a highly popular program of social reform. Árbenz was appointed Minister of Defense, and played a crucial role in putting down a military coup in 1949.

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⭐ Core Definition: Jacobo Arbenz
Jacobo Arbenz in the context of Guatemalan Party of Labour
Jacobo Arbenz in the context of National Renovation Party

Jacobo Arbenz in the context of Guatemalan Party of Labour

The Guatemalan Labour Party (Partido Guatemalteco del Trabajo) was a Marxist-Leninist party in Guatemala. It existed from 1949 to 1998. It gained prominence during the government of Jacobo Arbenz. It was one of the main forces of opposition to the various regimes that followed Arbenz's overthrow, and later became a constituent of the URNG guerrilla coalition during the later phase of the country's Civil War.

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Jacobo Arbenz in the context of National Renovation Party

The National Renovation Party (Spanish: Partido Renovación Nacional, PRN) was a reformist and progressive political party in Guatemala that was supportive of the government of Jacobo Arbenz. The PRN was founded by a group of the young revolutionaries on 1 July 1944, following the overthrow of dictator Jorge Ubico and the beginning of the Guatemalan Revolution. Its founders included Juan José Orozco Posadas, and Mario Efraín Nájera Farfán. The PRN was known as a “teachers' party”, in contrast to the Popular Liberation Front (FPL), which was seen as a "students' party”. During this period the PRN and the FPL were the largest of the revolutionary parties.

In the 1944 elections, the first democratic elections that had been held in the country, the PRN nominated Juan José Arévalo as its candidate. In November 1945 it merged with the FPL to form the Revolutionary Action Party (PAR) but split from it eighteen months later. This split was partially the result of ideological differences, and partially the result of manipulations by Arévalo, who preferred to deal with a fractured opposition. After some hesitation the PRN joined the Party of the Guatemalan Revolution in June 1952, but withdrew a month later. PRN was the smallest party in the coalition governments of Jacobo Árbenz (1951-1954). It was disbanded after the coup d'état of 1954.

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