Struggle in the Andes: Peasant Political Mobilization in Peru 9781477302767

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STRUGGLE IN THE ANDES Peasant Political Mobilization in Peru

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Latin American Monographs, No. 35 Institute of Latin American Studies The University of Texas at Austin

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Struggle in the Andes Peasant Political Mobilization in Peru

BY HOWARD HANDELMAN

Published for the Institute of Latin American Studies by the University of Texas Press, Austin

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Handelman, Howard, 1 9 4 3 Struggle in the Andes. (Latin American monographs, no. 35) Bibliography: p. 1. Agricultural laborers—Peru—Political activity. 2. Trade-unions—Agricultural laborers—Peru. 3. Peru—Rural conditions. 4. Land reform—Peru. I. Title. II. Series: Latin American monographs (Austin, Tex.) no. 35. HD1531.P4H35 1975 322'.2'0985 74-10796 ISBN 0-292-77513-X Copyright © 1975 by Howard Handelman All Rights Reserved Printed in the United States of America Composition by Service Typesetters, Austin Printing by The University of Texas Printing Division, Austin Binding by Universal Bookbindery, Inc., San Antonio

To My Parents and to Nancy

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CONTENTS

Preface xv 1. Introduction 3 2. Peru: A Dual Society 15 3. The Social Structure of the Traditional Sierra . . . 37 4. Social Change and the Breakdown of Traditional Society 48 5. The Peasants Take Their Land 62 6. The Growth of Peasant Federations 124 7. Social Correlates of Peasant Mobilization . . . . 155 8. A Theory of Peasant Mobilization 188 9. The Peasantry and the National Political System . . 217 10. Epilogue: The Peasantry Awaits Agrarian Reform . . 246 Appendix A. Statistical Data 267 Appendix B. Methods of Data Collection 273 Glossary 277 Bibliography 285 Index 297

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TABLES

2.1. 2.2. 2.3. 2.4. 2.5. 2.6. 5.1. 5.2. 5.3. 5.4. 7.1. 7.2. 7.3. 7.4. 7.5. 7.6. 7.7. 7.8. 7.9. 7.10. 7.11. 7.12. 7.13. 7.14. 7.15. 7.16.

Socioeconomic and Political Levels of the Coast and Sierra Land Distribution on the Coast Land Distribution in the Sierra Major Latifundios in Puno Major Latifundios in the Mancha India . . . Peru's Indigenous Communities Major Cities of the Sierra: Population Growth . . 1963 Election Returns in Selected Departments . . Social Mobilization of Cuzco's Peasantry . . . . Levels of Fatalism and Political Apathy among Cuzco's Peasantry Distribution of Communities in the Study . . . Land Invasions and Community Organization . . Distribution of District Capitals and Annexes . . . Quechua-Speaking Comuneros Spanish-Speaking Comuneros Indicators of Socioeconomic Development . . . Distribution of Communities by Social Development . Distribution of Communities by Economic Development Community Social and Economic Development . . Social Development and Land Seizures . . . . Social Development and Community Organization . Economic Development and Land Seizures . . . Economic Development and Community Organization Distribution of Communities by Outside Contact . . Outside Contact and Land Seizures Outside Contact and Community Organization . .

21 23 23 24 25 32 67 85 103 104 157 161 162 163 163 164 167 168 168 169 169 170 170 172 172 172

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7.17. Community Social Development and Outside Contact 173 7.18. Community Economic Development and Outside Contact 173 7.19. Present Dissatisfaction and Alienation of Community Leaders 180 7.20. Present Dissatisfaction and Perceived Class Conflict of Community Leaders 180 7.21. Alienation and Perceived Class Conflict of Community Leaders 180 7.22. Present Dissatisfaction of Community Leaders and Land Seizures 181 7.23. Alienation of Community Leaders and Land Seizures . 181 7.24. Perceived Class Conflict of Community Leaders and Land Seizures 181 7.25. Present Dissatisfaction of Community Leaders and Community Organization 182 7.26. Alienation of Community Leaders and Community Organization 182 7.27. Perceived Class Conflict of Community Leaders and Community Organization 182 7.28. Social Development and Present Dissatisfaction of Community Leaders 183 7.29. Social Development and Alienation of Community Leaders 184 7.30. Social Development and Perceived Class Conflict of Community Leaders 184 7.31. Economic Development and Present Dissatisfaction of Community Leaders 184 7.32. Economic Development and Alienation of Community Leaders 185 7.33. Economic Development and Perceived Class Conflict of Community Leaders 185 7.34. Outside Contact and Alienation of Community Leaders 186 7.35. Outside Contact and Perceived Class Conflict of Community Leaders 186 8.1. Social Development and Internal Solidarity . . . 196 8.2. Economic Development and Internal Solidarity . . 196 8.3. Outside Contact and Internal Solidarity . . . . 197 8.4. Land Seizures and Perception of Class Conflict . . 202 8.5. Land Seizures and Alienation 202

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Tables 8.6. 8.7. 9.1. 9.2. 9.3. 9.4. 9.5. 9.6. 9.7. 9.8. A-l. A-2. A-3. A-4. A-5. A-6. A-7. A-8. A-9. A-10. A-ll. A-12. A-13. A-14. A-15.

Alienation: By Department Perceived Class Conflict: By Department . . . Community Leaders' Perception of Their Villages' Political Influence Community Leaders' Perception of Their Villages' Capacity to Exert Political Pressure Social Development and Political Efficacy . . . Economic Development and Political Efficacy . . Perception of Changes in Village Life during the Previous Ten Years Expectation of Future Changes in Village Life . . Informants' Reasons for Expecting Improvement in Future Life of Their Communities . . . . Support for the National Administration: 1963 and 1969 Cutting-Points: Spanish-Speaking Comuneros . . Cutting-Points: Adult Literacy Cutting-Points: Primary-School Attendance . . . Cutting-Points: Ratio of Community Population to Stores Cutting-Points: Comuneros with Radios . . . . Cutting-Points: Comuneros Traveling to Nearby Cities Cutting-Points: Index of Political Affect . . . . Cutting-Points: Index of Alienation Cutting-Points: Perceived Class Conflict . . . . Cutting-Points: Protestants Cutting-Points: Quechua Speakers Cutting-Points: Ratio of Community Population to Number of Club Members Cutting-Points: Number of Fiesta Days per Year . . Cutting-Points: Perception of Village's Political Influence Cutting-Points: Perception of Village's Capacity to Exert Political Pressure

204 204 220 220 223 224 225 225 226 232 269 269 269 270 270 270 270 270 271 271 271 271 271 272 272

FIGURES

2.1. 2.2. 2.3. 3.1. 3.2. 5.1. 5.2. 5.3. 5.4. 8.1. 8.2. 8.3. 8.4.

Map of Peru Peruvian Sierra The Mancha India The Triangle without a Base The Comunidad and the Triangle without a Base . Major Areas of Peasant Unrest Department of Pasco Department of Junín Department of Cuzco Modernization and Mobilization From Transition to Integration A Typology of Development and Mobilization . A Model of Peasant Mobilization

16 18 20 43 . 45 63 64 87 99 192 192 . 203 206

PREFACE

In June, 1969—while I was conducting field research for this study—Peru's governing military junta announced an extensive landreform program designed to distribute hacienda lands to needy villagers and peons. Consequently, the socioeconomic conditions of the Peruvian highlands that are described in the early portions of this book have been undergoing dramatic change. The land-tenure arrangements and hacienda domination that stimulated peasant mobilization in 1963-1964 seem to be disappearing. This book's concluding chapter, which serves as a postscript to my earlier research, analyzes the first three years of the current land-reform program. Events since 1969 reinforce my earlier conviction that rural unrest and peasant political mobilization may continue despite the government's land-redistribution policies. Consequently, the issues of peasant mobilization discussed here are still relevant in Peru and other Latin American nations. Anyone who has ever done research abroad knows that a scholar working in a foreign country can be successful only if he receives the cooperation and support of many persons. My work in Lima and in the villages of the Peruvian sierra (highlands) was exciting but difficult. Before leaving the United States, I was warned that Peruvian peasants and intellectuals would be very suspicious of my investigation. In selecting students to administer my survey, I asked each applicant to consider carefully whether he wished to do such work with a "gringo." After I had picked my research assistants, I informed them that they could eliminate any items from my questionnaire that they considered objectionable or that they did not feel com-

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fortable asking. None of them wished to remove any questions. In fact, they added one or two inquiries that I had considered too sensitive. Village leaders were also told that they should only answer those parts of my questionnaire that they wished to. Here again, my informants surprised me with their candor in expressing political opinions. In only two of the forty-three peasant communities that I visited did village leaders refuse to submit to the questionnaire. Although a few peasant leaders and urban political activists were too suspicious to work with me, I was impressed by the kindness and cooperation of most Peruvians whom I approached. I could not possibly thank all the persons by name who were so helpful in assisting me. My deepest appreciation goes to the peasants, journalists, lawyers, government officials, students, and political prisoners who patiently and candidly answered my questions. I shall never forget the village peasants who opened their homes to me and to my research assistants and who shared their scarce food with us. I am also grateful to Dr. Julio Cotler (of the Instituto de Estudios Peruanos) and Dr. Fritz Wils (then of Lima's Universidad Católica) for helping me adapt my research plans to Peru's particular conditions and for giving me invaluable advice in many areas. In the United States, Gerrit Huizer (International Labor Organization), Maurice Zeitlin (the University of Wisconsin), and Liisa North (York University) helped me with their suggestions and criticisms. Brian Silver (Florida State University), Jorge Dandier (Universidad Católica), and Donald McCrone (University of Iowa) read parts of the manuscript and offered valuable comments. I am particularly grateful to Charles Anderson of the University of Wisconsin's Political Science Department. As my graduate academic adviser and as a friend, he contributed greatly to this particular research and to my general understanding of Latin American politics. Needless to say, I bear sole responsibility for the contents of this study and for any errors of judgment or fact that it may contain. I am indebted to William F. Whyte (New York School of Labor and Industrial Relations), Dr. Héctor Martínez (the Instituto Indigenista of Peru's Labor Ministry), and the Dirección Nacional de Estadística y Censos for graciously giving me access to unpublished data that they had gathered on the Peruvian sierra. I would also like to thank Mrs. Marilyn Henry, who showed great

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patience in typing this manuscript; Susan Yáñez, who helped as a research assistant; Robert Albrecht, who contributed to the final editing; and Don Temple (University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee), who drew the maps. Support for my field research came from the University of Wisconsin's Ibero-American Studies Committee with funds provided by the Ford Foundation. The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee's Latin American Center provided support to reduce my teaching load and permit the completion of this manuscript. My greatest debts are to Arturo Igreda, Julio César Palacios, Romigio Poma García, and Humberto Tocre—Peruvian University students who helped me conduct my village surveys and who served as warm hosts and guides in their native regions of the highlands; and, most of all, to my wife, Nancy, who cheerfully experienced with me the hardships of life in the Peruvian rural highlands, who aided me throughout my research, and who provided the intellectual insights of a historian concerned with many of the same issues in her own research.

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STRUGGLE IN THE ANDES Peasant Political Mobilization in Peru

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1. INTRODUCTION

Each morning the villagers of Punabamba rise at dawn, roll their blankets into the corners of their mud-brick huts, and prepare for another day of work in the fields. Having neither electricity nor fuel to light their homes, they must finish their toil before sunset. Punabamba is a small Peruvian peasant community in the southern department (state) of Cuzco. It is located less than thirty miles from the department capital. Yet, lying in the remote heights of the Andes, the village is physically and culturally isolated from urban centers. There are no schools or hospitals, no paved roads, no modern agricultural tools. Dressed in the traditional sandals and ponchos of their ancestors, the thousand inhabitants work their small plots in the manner of their grandfathers and their fathers before them. Villages and manorial estates feud over pastures and water. The only law is the traditional right of the stronger and wealthier over the weaker and poorer. As they walk toward their plots, the people of Punabamba may glance at the neighboring Hacienda Huacartambo and wonder if their comunidad ("community") will ever recover the lands that have been stolen from them. For more years than any of them can remember, the punabambeños ("inhabitants of Punabamba") have been sending their legal claims and petitions to the Ministry of Labor and Indigenous Affairs, to the agrarian-reform agencies, and to the courts. Escobar, the president of the community, carried their

Introduction

4

maps and ancient land titles to the city of Cuzco or even to Lima. Each time the authorities received his documents they told him to return to his village to wait: "Such matters take time," they would say, "for the technicians and engineers have to study the boundaries and examine all relevant legal considerations." But the engineers never came, and the presentation of documents had become an endless ritual. Finally, in the winter of 1969, encouraging news had reached the comunidad. Several of the villagers who owned transistor radios were spreading the news of a speech made by the president of the Republic, General Juan Velasco Alvarado. The president had called for a new era in which the peasantry would "enjoy the fruits of their land . . . and no longer be exploited by other men." 1 Might this mean that the ministry would finally accept their claims against the Hacienda Huacartambo? A few villagers felt that Escobar should travel to Cuzco to find out. But, for the vast majority of the comuneros ("villagers"), the president's speech had little meaning. Government officials in Lima might make promises, but somehow nothing ever came of them. Hadn't the previous president also promised the peasants their lands? In truth, most punabambeños did not listen to General Velasco's pronouncement; had they heard it, they would have understood very little, for it was delivered in Spanish rather than in their native language, Quechua. A new Agrarian Reform Law had been issued following the speech, but the villagers had not read it. Most of them are illiterate, and neither newspapers nor government decrees ever reach Punabamba. Few villagers are eligible to vote, and those who do hold voting cards have little faith in politicians or in political parties. Not all the peasant communities of Peru are as isolated or as traditional as Punabamba. In the central region of the Andean highlands (or sierra) the villages are in closer contact with the urban sector, and the comuneros have a higher level of political awareness. However, to some extent, all the Andean comunidades confront problems similar to those of Punabamba. Between 40 and 50 percent of Peru's population are campesinos ("peasants"). Their native language is usually Quechua, though 1

Expreso (Lima), June 26, 1969, p. 23.

5

Introduction

Aymará is spoken in the region near Bolivia, and Spanish is more common in the North. Spanish generally is, at best, a second language that the peasants can speak only haltingly. Half of them do not speak it at all. Over 60 percent are illiterate and consequently have never been entitled to vote. 2 Those who are enfranchised have little opportunity for meaningful political participation. Like most Latin American nations, Peru has neither peasant-based political parties nor significant peasant pressure groups. Even the country's "reformist" parties have not shown much interest in the peasantry. Consequently, government decisions affecting the rural sector are made without consulting the campesinos. In short, the peasantry is usually left out of the nation's political articulation and aggregation processes.3 In 1969 I visited Punabamba and a number of other peasant communities in the Peruvian sierra. My purpose was to study the role of the village campesinos in the national political system. This inquiry, then, asks how and under what circumstances the peasantry may become an effective participant in Peruvian politics. What conditions are necessary for the peasantry to enter the political arena as an independent power contender? What power capabilities does the peasantry possess? Who might lead a politically mobilized peasantry, and what alliances might such a group enter into? Finally, what are the attitudes of Peru's existing political organizations and of various social classes toward peasant mobilization? That is to say, how willing are they to allow the peasantry into the political system? The Peasant Land

Movement

In 1960 a large number of peasant villages in the central sierra invaded the lands of adjoining haciendas and claimed them as their own. Three years later this movement spread to Cuzco and other parts of the South. Eventually all of Peru was swept with a wave of similar land seizures. Most of the invading villages had insisted 2 On July 28, 1969, Peru's ruling military junta announced its intention to extend suffrage to illiterates whenever elections are restored. If this constitutional amendment is carried through, illiterate peasants will vote for the first time in the nation's history. 3 Gabriel Almond and James Coleman, The Politics of the Developing Areas, pp. 3-64.

Introduction

6

for years that these invaded hacienda properties were rightfully theirs. Like Punabamba, they had undertaken long and fruitless legal battles for the lands prior to the invasions.4 Often the decision to physically reclaim the land, and the seizure itself, involved most of the members of the comunidad. The invasions were usually planned and led by the campesinos rather than by outsiders. Since hacienda owners frequently met the comuneros with armed resistance, a successful invasion required active cooperation among the villagers. By dramatically retaking property that they felt was theirs, these peasants challenged a pattern of domination that had existed for hundreds of years. Their behavior indicated to the national government that the needs and demands of the campesinos could no longer be easily ignored. The president and the Congress were forced to seriously consider the long-neglected question of agrarian reform. Because the peasantry is not a significant independent voting bloc and because its members lack associations that can articulate their demands to the government, often its only political power capability may be its potential for violence. As Gerrit Huizer has observed, extensive land-reform programs in Latin America have usually been initiated as a result of pressure from below—that is to say, by land seizures and other forms of peasant unrest. "A well organized peasantry," says Huizer, "with armed self-defense, if need be, is a very effective way of achieving a quick and radical agrarian reform."5 In Peru the seizures were accompanied by the development of sindicatos ("unions"), village federations, and other types of peasant organizations. Often these campesino groups were in contact with each other and with sympathetic urban elements, such as students and leftist trade unions. Organizations of this kind had never previously existed in the highlands. They offered the peasantry an opportunity for more enduring participation in the political system. 4

Peasant leaders involved in the seizures—and their supporters—insist that these were land recuperations rather than land invasions. They maintain that the hacienda lands were not stolen—as the term invasion implies—but merely retaken. My research indicated that this claim was probably correct in most cases. I use the terms invasion and seizure in this study simply because they are more-common English words than recuperation. 5 Gerrit Huizer, "Peasant Organizations and Agrarian Reform in Latin America," p. 2 1 .

Introduction

7

The realization that the peasantry had suddenly become a volatile political element shook the roots of the existing power structure. In Lima and other urban centers the dominant social classes feared the "fire on the Andes," which Carleton Beals had predicted thirty years earlier.6 La Prensa and other conservative newspapers in Lima warned of the dangers of rural revolt and communist subversion. Eventually the unrest in the sierra brought the fall of the prime minister and his cabinet through congressional censure. The land-invasion movement of the early 1960's was unquestionably Peru's most significant rural mobilization in modern times. It raised a number of basic questions about the possibilities and potential of peasant political action. This study will focus on four important questions about the movement. First, what were the factors that precipitated the eruption of a mass mobilization out of a seemingly placid countryside? To answer this question I will examine political and socioeconomic conditions in the regions in which invasions were most prevalent. I will try to differentiate between villages that participated in the seizures and those that did not. In short, my first concern will be with the social and economic correlates of peasant mobilization. Second, what effects did the invasions have on the social and political structure of the highlands? Arthur Stinchcombe argues that property arrangements strongly influence rural class relationships.7 Tenure arrangements affect such diverse factors as the extent of class differentiation, the level of political organization and participation within each class, and the nature of communications between classes. We should like to know, then, if the changes in land tenure occasioned by the seizures altered these social and political aspects of sierra life. Third, what were the effects of the land invasions on the political behavior and attitudes of the peasantry? Huizer suggests that most regional or national peasant movements that have demanded dramatic changes of the social order grew out of rather narrow and specific peasant goals.8 Often the struggle for land has politicized persons whose initial objectives and attitudes were totally 6

Carleton Beals, Fire on the Andes. Arthur L. Stinchcombe, "Agrarian Enterprise and Rural Class Relations," American Journal of Sociology 67 (1961-1962): 165-176. 8 Huizer, "Peasant Organizations," pp. 19-20. 7

8

Introduction

nonpolitical. The Zapatista arm of the Mexican Revolution, peasant communism in southern Italy, and Andalusian anarchism all developed out of the peasants' battle for land. 9 Narrowly framed or limited objectives were expanded into more general political demands. This was particularly true when outside leadership linked the peasants' desire for land with a call for more sweeping changes in the national social and political systems. This study will investigate the extent to which this happened in Peru. Finally, this inquiry will ask: What were the reactions of the national government and of the principal actors in Peruvian politics to the invasions and to the accompanying prospects of extensive peasant mobilization? Did they perceive the invasions as legitimate protests or as a threat to their security? How willing were the major political parties and organizations to allow the peasantry into their midst? The Peasantry as a Social Class In seeking a better understanding of the peasants' political involvement, I will examine a number of existing theories of rural mobilization in the light of Peru's experience. How relevant are these general theories to Peru, and what relationship do my findings have to the theories? It would be useful at this point to define more precisely the terms peasant and peasant community. There are a number of possible definitions, and, obviously, no single one is correct. However, in the course of this study I will understand peasants to be small rural cultivators who produce primarily for their own consumption. This classification may include small owneroperators, tenants, or sharecroppers, but it excludes salaried plantation workers, rural artisans, and fishermen. A peasant community may contain a number of artisans, merchants, and other persons who are not full-time cultivators, but the majority of its members are primarily engaged in subsistence agriculture. Of course, not all small-scale rural cultivators are peasants. The peasantry must be distinguished from tribal primitives, on the one hand, and from modern farmers, on the other. Unlike primitive 9 See John Womack, Jr., Zapata and the Mexican Revolution; Sidney G. Tarrow, Peasant Communism in Southern Italy; Eric J. Hobsbawm, Primitive Rebels.

Introduction

9

tribal societies, peasant communities are linked to the nation-state and are influenced by it. Yet, unlike farmers, peasants are not participating members of modern society. Often they are illiterate. They produce for the market only within the context of an assured production for subsistence. Moreover, they are traditionals who cultivate their plots, not merely as a business for profit, but also as a way of life. "The land and the peasant are parts of one thing, one old-established body of relationships."10 Finally, the peasant is not an independent socioeconomic or political actor. A large part of his crop is "transferred to a dominant group of rulers that uses the surplus . . . to underwrite its own standard of living."11 His life is largely controlled by an elite of landlords, merchants, and political bosses. The peasant is thereby confined to the lower levels of the rural social pyramid. 12 A number of years ago, Robert Redfield predicted the eventual demise of the peasantry as a social class. "For the future," he claimed, "it may be said that the peasantry are ceasing to be." 13 However, today peasants still constitute the majority of mankind. In Latin America and the developing world, they are by far the largest segment of the population. As Theodore Shanin notes, " . . . for all but comparatively few countries, 'the people' (as opposed to 'the nation') still denotes 'the peasants.' "14 In most of these countries the peasant shares the problems of the Peruvian campesino. He is an inhabitant of the nation-state but is unable to participate fully in its political, economic, or cultural life; he is dependent upon the urban, modern sector but is unable to influence it. In a sense he seems to be out of place in a world of developing nations that aspire to modernity and industrialization. For he is "a pre-industrial entity who carries into contemporary society specific, different, and older elements of social interrelation, economics, policy, and culture." 15 10

Robert Redfield, Peasant Society and Culture, p. 19. Eric R. Wolf, Peasants, pp. 3-4. 12 Gideon Sjoberg, "Folk and Feudal Societies," American Journal of Sociology 58 (November 1952): 231-239. 13 Redfield, Peasant Society, p. 77. 14 Theodore Shanin, "Peasantry as a Political Factor," Sociological Review, n.s. 14 (March 1966): 5. 15 Ibid., p. 10. 11

Introduction

10 The Political World of the Peasantry

The distinct cultural values of the peasants obviously affect their political norms and behavior. Eric Hobsbawm suggests that they are a "pre-political people who have not yet found, or [have] only begun to find, a specific language in which to express their aspirations about the world."16 Yet the isolation of the peasant from the national culture and polity cannot continue indefinitely, nor can the peasant's needs be permanently ignored. By virtue of its size alone, the peasantry must become a central concern of all developing nations. This is not to say that everywhere the peasants are ripe for revolution or that they are now making pressing demands on the political system. On the contrary, in many underdeveloped nations the peasants have been controlled for centuries and are unlikely to attain a significant amount of political influence in the foreseeable future. However, any nation wishing to emerge from a preindustrial stage into the modern world must ultimately incorporate the peasantry into the nation-state. In short, a sizeable peasantry is the mark of an underdeveloped nation; and, conversely, modernization is largely a process of bringing the peasant into the national socioeconomic and political systems. When Karl Deutsch, Chalmers Johnson, and others discuss the processes of social mobilization and integration, they often speak of these social phenomena in relation to the peasantry. 17 Samuel Huntington points to the central position of the peasantry in the process of political development. "The most fundamental aspect of political modernization... is the participation in politics beyond the village or town level by social groups throughout the society and the development of new political institutions, such as political parties, to organize that participation.... A crucial turning point in the extension of political participation in a modernizing society is the inauguration of the rural masses into national politics."18 16

Hobsbawm, Primitive Rebels, p. 2. Chalmers Johnson, Peasant Nationalism and Communist Power; Karl W. Deutsch, "Social Mobilization and Political Development," American Political Science Review 55 (September 1961): 493-514. 18 Samuel P. Huntington, Political Order in Changing Societies, pp. 36 and 74. 17

Introduction

11

The peasantry may be integrated into the existing political system, or it may be mobilized by groups seeking to overthrow that system. As Huntington indicates, the way in which the rural mass is organized and mobilized may well determine the stability and viability of the state and the likelihood of revolutionary change. What course, then, is this peasant mobilization likely to follow? A critical determinant of the peasant's behavior certainly is his attitude toward a political and economic system that has traditionally excluded and exploited him. This attitude will shape his perceptions of possible avenues of change. The existing literature on the peasantry encompasses diametrically opposed images of peasant political norms and behavior. Early scholarship suggested that the peasantry was inherently traditionalistic and conservative. Pitrim Sorokin, Robert Redfield, and others held that the peasant was a bulwark of the existing social order. Said Redfield, "In every part of the world, generally speaking, peasants have been a conservative factor in social change, a brake on revolution."19 In an even earlier period, the peasantry's alleged traditionalism and lack of class consciousness aroused Karl Marx's hostility and led him to doubt its revolutionary potential. In the Eighteenth Brumaire he disparagingly referred to smallholders as a "sack of potatoes." And, on another occasion, he called them "the class that represents the barbarism in civilization."20 Many scholars believe that the peasants' alleged conservatism is closely related to a fatalistic view of life and a consequent tendency toward political apathy. Thus, Phyllis Arora indicates that the peasant tends to feel powerless in the face of political authority: "Helplessness is another emotion evoked by the presence of the district officer. The peasant tends to feel that all he can do before such authority . . . is petition for redress of grievances. . . . In the ultimate analysis, however,... the peasant feels at the mercy of the whims of the authorities." 21 In a similar vein, Charles Wagley maintains that peasants have little political interest or motivation. Thus, he describes a rural Brazilian election in the following terms: "There was little or no 19

Redfield, Peasant Society, p. 77. Karl Marx, Capital, quoted in Shanin, "Peasantry," p. 6. "Phyllis Arora, "Patterns of Political Response in Indian Peasant Society," Western Political Quarterly 20 (September 1967): 654. 20

Introduction

12

interest in the election amongst the peasants. . . . On election day political parties sent out trucks to the rural zones to bring the peasants to v o t e . . . . They were served free meals by the political party which claimed their votes and whose truck had transported them to town. They voted according to the dictates of influential townsmen, motivated by personal loyalty and economic bonds (i.e., debts) rather than by strong political feeling."22 Historical developments in the twentieth century have made modification of these generalizations necessary. Thus, Oscar Lewis notes: "It is commonly held that peasants are essentially a stabilizing and conservative force in human history. The events of our century, however, throw some doubt on this comfortable stereotype. Peasants had an important . . . role in at least four major revolutions—the Mexican Revolution of 1910, the Russian Revolution, the Chinese Communist Revolution and the Cuban Revolution."23 To this list we might add Yugoslavia, Algeria, and Vietnam. Huntington argues that the position of the peasantry may well be the critical factor in determining the likelihood of revolutionary change in a developing nation: The countryside plays the crucial "swing role" in modernizing politics. . . . The way in which the peasants are incorporated into the political system shapes the subsequent courses of political development. If the countryside supports the political system and the government, the system itself is secure against revolution and the government has some hope of securing itself against rebellion. If the countryside is in opposition, both system and government are in danger of overthrow. . . . For the political system opposition within the city is disturbing but not lethal. Opposition within the countryside, however, is fatal. He who controls the countryside controls the country.24 It is not surprising, therefore, that contemporary revolutionaries have cast aside Marx's suspicion of the peasant and have "increasingly placed their hopes in the peasantry as the bearer of social revolution."25 On the occasion of the twentieth anniversary of the 22

Charles Wagley and Marvin Harris, "A Typology of Latin American Subcultures," American Anthropologist 57 (June 1955): 443. 23 Oscar Lewis, PedroMartínez,p. xxx. 24 Huntington, Political Order, p. 292. "James Petras and Maurice Zeitlin, "Agrarian Radicalism in Chile," British Journal of Sociology 19 (September 1968): 254.

Introduction

13

victory of the Chinese people over the Japanese, Mao Tse-tung declared: "The peasants constitute the main force of the nationaldemocratic revolution against the imperialists and their lackeys. . . . The countryside alone can provide the revolutionary basis from which the revolution can go to final victory."26 Jean Paul Sartre, Fidel Castro, Ché Guevara, and Frantz Fanon have been among the revolutionary theorists who have turned to the peasantry as a newly found vanguard. Said Fanon: "In colonial countries the peasants alone are revolutionary, for they have nothing to lose and everything to gain. The starving peasant, outside of the class system, is the first among the exploited to discover that only violence pays."27 In short, concepts of peasant political culture seem to have changed considerably over time. As Theodore Shanin notes, ". . . the image of the peasant has swung from that of an angelic rustic humanist to a greedy, pig-headed brute." Today, much of the literature on peasant political involvement still suffers from the "emotional overtones and diversity of opinion which shroud this subject."28 Peasants are still despised by some theorists as apathetic and insensitive brutes and glorified by others as the vanguard of revolutionary change. Such stereotyped descriptions of village life frequently are formed by authors who have not observed peasant life first hand or considered the great diversity of conditions under which various peasant communities function. Neither of these extreme positions appears to be very satisfactory. One position fails to explain important instances of peasant mobilization and unrest, while the other fails to confront the many instances of rural tranquility and stability. The peasant is clearly not inherently either passive or revolutionary. Under differing circumstances he may be either of these, or he may stand somewhere in between. Despite the recent outpouring of research on peasant mobilization and political behavior, many questions remain unanswered or unresolved. Thus, James Petras and Maurice Zeitlin note that, to their knowledge, "there have yet to be published any empirical 26 Mao Tse-tung, quoted in Gil C. Alroy, "Insurgency in the Countryside of Underdeveloped Societies," Antioch Review 26 (Summer 1966): 149. 27 Frantz Fanon, quoted in Hamza Alavi, "Peasants and Revolution," in The Socialist Register: 1965, ed. R. Miliband and J. Saville, p. 241. 28 Shanin, "Peasantry," p. 5.

Introduction

14

sociological studies of peasant radicalism."29 Sharp debates continue on the significance of particular rural movements. For example, does the rise of a peasant league or federation mean that a segment of the peasantry has effectively been politicized and is demanding its rights? Or, are traditional relationships merely being recast, as urban political leaders make use of the rural masses in order to further their own political ends? 30 Despite all that has been written on peasant revolutions, some authors continue to doubt that such a phenomenon is possible. The term peasant revolution, says Gil Alroy, "is questionable since 'revolution' implies modernization, mobilization and politicization, and 'peasant' implies traditionalism. Rebellion or revolt—yes;... But 'peasant revolution' seems a contradiction in terms." 31 In short, our understanding of the political world of the peasant remains limited. I hope that this study of the land movement in central and southern Peru will help to answer some of these questions. As I have indicated, my focus will be not only on the peasant's revolutionary potential, but also on the more general question of peasant political mobilization. William Mangin, a long-time student of rural Peru, warned against the dangers of generalizing about the "nature of the peasantry" in that country, much less about the nature of peasants throughout the world.32 My brief experience in the sierra has shown me the wisdom of his warning. Yet, Robert Redfield has suggested that "peasant society and culture has something generic about it. It is a kind of arrangement of humanity with some similarities all over the world."33 To the extent that some similarities do exist between Peruvian peasants and peasants elsewhere, my findings may have more general applicability. 29

Petras and Zeitlin, "Agrarian Radicalism," p. 254. See Benno Galjart, "Class and Following in Rural Brazil," América Latina 7 (July-September 1964): 3-24; Gerrit Huizer, "Reply to Galjart," América Latina 8 (July-September 1965): 145-152, for a debate on this topic. 31 Gil Carl Alroy, The Involvement of Peasants in Internal Wars, p. 3. 32 William Mangin, Las comunidades alteños en la América Latina, p. 44. 33 Redfield, Peasant Society, p. 17. 30

2. PERU: A DUAL SOCIETY

Physically and culturally, Peru might be considered two nations rather than one. Its coast, from the northern border with Ecuador to the Chilean boundary in the south, consists of a desert strip generally less than twenty miles in width. To the east, rising sharply over the coastal desert, are the towering mountains of the Andes, which reach an altitude of nearly twenty thousand feet.1 When the Spanish explorer Francisco Pizarro and his small band of soldiers landed on the northern coast of Peru in the early sixteenth century, the seat of the Incan empire was located in the southern Andean city of Cuzco.2 Shortly before that time, the Incas had subdued the major kingdoms of the coast (primarily the kingdom of Chimor) and thereby extended their control into the desert. 1

Beyond the eastern slope of the Andes lies Peru's third major geographical region, the jungle. These rain forests are part of the huge Amazon basin, which stretches into Colombia, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Brazil. This jungle (or selva) covers well over half the nation's territory. Yet, it has never been relevant to a discussion of Peru's social, political, and economic situation, because it is largely unpopulated and much of its sparse population (some 9 percent of the national total) is composed of isolated aboriginal tribes. 2 For further information on Peru's pre-Columbian history and the conquest, see Victor W. Von Hagen, The Desert Kingdoms of Peru; idem, Realm of the Incas; and William H. Prescott, The History of the Conquest of Peru.

16

Fig. 2.1.

Map of Peru

Peru: A Dual Society

17

However, the base of imperial power and most of the Indian population remained in the highlands.3 The eastern Peruvian jungle was inhabited by scattered, primitive tribes that had escaped Incan domination because of their ferocity and the difficulty of the jungle terrain. Then, as now, the peoples of the jungle lived in isolation from the remainder of Peru. To a large extent, Pizarro set the tone of Peru's subsequent political and cultural development. He established the colonial capital, Lima, in a coastal river valley, rather than in the more densely populated highlands, so that the white settlers could be in shipping contact with Spain and other areas of the Spanish American empire.4 In time the coast became the preserve of white Spanish culture as well as the heart of the nation's economic and political systems. Most of Peru's major cities were established in other coastal valleys—Callao (Lima's twin city), Arequipa, Trujillo, Chimbote, and Chiclayo. In the early part of the twentieth century, modern irrigation techniques and heavy foreign investment produced large sugar, cotton, and rice plantations in these valleys. These modern estates have supplied the nation with much of its food and virtually all of its agricultural exports. On the other hand, the Andean highland area (or sierra) retained its predominantly Indian culture and traditions. Whereas Spanish was spoken almost universally on the coast, the primary language of the highlands remained Quechua, an Indian language of Incan origin.5 In many highland communities, peasants still wear

'Scholars can only speculate as to the actual population of the Incan empire. Estimates range from 2 million through 6 million. Von Hagen believes that there may have been as many as 500,000 persons living on the coast. In any event, between 75 and 95 percent of the empire's population lived in the Andean highlands. 4 Most of the coastal desert is too dry and desolate to support human life. However, there are a series of rivers that carry water down from the Andes and produce the fertile valleys that supported the Spanish and several pre-Columbian Indian civilizations. Pizarro founded Lima in one such valley on the Rímac River. 5 The strength of Spanish and Quechua culture varies in different parts of the sierra. The rural population in the northern highlands has been most assimilated, and peasants in that area generally speak Spanish and retain few traditional Indian customs or forms of dress. In the central sierra, peasants often

18

Fig. 2.2. Peruvian Sierra

Peru: A Dual Society

19

the traditional Indian dress of poncho and sandals (although these have been modified somewhat by Western influences). When sierra Indians migrate to coastal cities, they exchange these garments for Western clothing. Indian culture is most strongly entrenched in the southern highlands. Cuzco, the ancient Incan capital, remains the center of traditional Indian society today. The departments of Ancash, Apurímac, Ayacucho, Huancavelica, and Puno are also populated primarily by speakers of Quechua. These states (all contiguous, except for Ancash) are known as the mancha india, or "Indian territory." They contain nearly 90 percent of the 1.8 million Peruvian adults whose primary language is Quechua or Aymará. About 87 percent of the adult population of the mancha india speak little or no Spanish.6 Together with the central highland departments of Junín, Pasco, and Huánuco, these states give Peru a population that is nearly one-half Indian or mestizo.7 In total, the sierra gives Peru the fourth highest concentration of Indians in all Latin America.8 Throughout the course of Peruvian history, then, there has always been a great social and economic gap between coast and highland. Thus, adult illiteracy has been more than twice as prevalent in the sierra as on the coast. By the middle of the twentieth century, over two-thirds of the coastal population was urban, while the highland population remained predominantly rural. Most importantly, standards of living in the two regions differed significantly. Costeños ("coastal residents") had a per capita income two to three times

speak both Spanish and a dialect of Quechua (women are more likely to speak only Quechua). And in the South, the majority of the rural population speaks only Quechua (or, in the region bordering on Lake Titicaca near Bolivia, Aymará, another Indian language). When I discuss the highlands (sierra), I generally mean the southern and central sierra. 6 Julio Cotler, "La mecánica de la dominación interna y del cambio social en la sociedad rural," in Perú problema, by José Matos Mar et al., pp. 171-173. Reprinted in English in Studies in Comparative International Development 3, no. 12 (1967-1968): 229-246. 7 A mestizo is a person who is of Indian ancestry but who has been acculturated into white Spanish society. 8 Asher N. Christensen, "Latin America: The Land and People," in Government and Politics in Latin America, ed. Harold Davis, pp. 40-41.

20

Fig. 2.3. The Mancha India

Peru: A Dual Society

21 9

greater than that of the serranos ("highland inhabitants"). Most of Peru's highland peasantry lived in great poverty. In the early 1950's a series of surveys showed that serranos were generally malnourished and hungry. At that time, costeños consumed an average of 2,264 calories per day, while highland peasants averaged only 1,780.10 Moreover, the Serrano's diet relied heavily on rice, potatoes, corn, and other starches and lacked adequate sources of proteins.11 In addition to being more socioeconomically advanced, the coast has always dominated Peru's political system. Because they enjoy a higher level of literacy, costeños vote in far greater numbers than highlanders (Table 2.1). Although over half of the nation's population has resided in the sierra, that region has held only one-fourth of Peru's voters. Moreover, the nation's most powerful political forces have always come from the coast. Within the highlands, there have also been socioeconomic differences between regions. The most backward area of the sierra has been the mancha india, which encompasses the Indian departTABLE 2.1 Socioeconomic and Political Levels of the Coast and Sierra Total population (1965) Percentage of national population Percentage of nation's voters Percentage of national income Percentage of urban population Percentage of adult literacy

Coast 4,662,400 39.7 69.0 61.0 69.0 79.0

Sierra 5,993,900 51.0 26.0 35.0 26.0 41.0

SOURCES: Total population is drawn from Emilio Romero, Geografía económica del Perú, p. 26. The other figures are drawn from Julio Cotler and F. Portocarrero, Organizaciones campesinas del Perú, pp. 1-2. The Cotler and Portocarrero figures are drawn from a slightly later period (1967) when the coastal population was somewhat higher relative to the sierra. "David A. Robinson, Peru in Four Dimensions, p. 110. Of course, a large proportion of the highland peasantry's income was in kind, and many peasants were not part of the cash economy. However, even when compensations are introduced to allow for such factors, the income gap remains similar. 10 Ibid., p. 95. "The best account of malnutrition and hunger in the sierra is Carlos Malpica, Crónica del hambre en el Perú. Malpica suggests that the Indian population may have enjoyed a better diet under the Incas than they do in the twentieth century.

Peru: A Dual Society

22

ments in the South. In this region, in 1961, adult illiteracy ranged from 51 percent (in Ancash) to 76 percent (in Apurímac). The regional average of 65 percent adult illiteracy (81 percent in the villages) contrasted with a national rate of 39 percent. 12 The pronounced differences between the relatively developed Peruvian coast and the traditional sierra led Julio Cotler to call Peru a "dual society." The coast, he contended, historically exploited the highlands as a source of cheap labor and raw materials. The nation's political and economic decisions were made in Lima and other coastal cities. Consequently, the sierra peasantry was subjected to two overlapping systems of internal domination. First, the highlands were not allowed to share in Peru's twentieth-century socioeconomic development. Second, within the sierra, the peasantry was controlled politically and economically by the major hacendados and their mestizo allies.13 Peru's recent peasant mobilization began with the comuneros9 attempts to regain village lands from the latifundios. Over time, the movement developed into a struggle against the nation's twofold system of internal domination. The succeeding chapters of this study will be concerned with the socioeconomic and political origins of that movement. I will be particularly interested in the system of land tenure that provided the initial impetus for rural unrest. The focus of the study will be on the sierra, the locale of Peru's indigenous communities. However, I will also briefly contrast village agriculture with the agricultural systems of the sierra hacienda and the coastal plantation. The Problem of Land As in other less-developed countries in Latin America, Peruvian agriculture was characterized by a combination of latifundismo, the concentration of enormously large landholdings in the hands of a few owners, and minifundismo, large numbers of smallholders with 12

Cotler, "La mecánica de la dominación," pp. 172-174. Ibid., pp. 153-197. Rodolfo Stavenhagen suggests that a small, modernized, urban sector exploits the rural majority in most of Latin America's less-developed nations. Stavenhagen describes this as a process of "internal colonialism." See R. Stavenhagen, "Seven Erroneous Theses about Latin America," in Latin America: Reform or Revolution? ed. James Petras and Maurice Zeitlin, pp. 13-31. 13

23

Peru: A Dual Society

plots of land too small to be economically viable. This situation existed in both the coast and the highlands. Unfortunately, the available land-tenure data for the coast and highlands (Tables 2.2 and 2.3) are not totally comparable. Moreover, data on the sierra evaluate communal village landholdings as single units (category 5 of Table 2.3). In point of fact, the average communal holding of 1,985 hectares was divided among the entire village population of some 100 to 1,000 families. (Thus, the data in category 5 of Table 2.3 should be merged with categories 1 and 2 to give a truer picture of the inequities in sierra land tenure.) TABLE 2.2 Land Distribution on the Coast (1961) Size of Holding (Hectares) 0-3 3-10 10-50 50+

1. 2. 3. 4.

Number of Holdings Total % 45,200 83.2 11.4 6,200 2,000 3.7 920 1.7

Area of Holdings Total % 129,000 10.0 52,000 4.0 78,000 6.0 1,036,000 80.0

SOURCE: Comité Interamericano de Desarrollo Agrícola (CIDA), Tenencia de la tierra y desarrollo socioeconómico del sector agrícola: Perú, p. 56. TABLE 2.3 Land Distribution in the Sierra (1961) Size of Holding Average Type (Hectares) 1.2 1. Very smalla 8.2 2. Small 39.8 3. Medium 1,284.8 4. Large 5. Communalb 1,985.1

Number of Holdings Total % 590,730 83.4 88,500 12.5 19,100 2.7 8,912 1.3 808 .1

Area of Holdings Total % 4.7 722,000 4.8 724,000 5.0 760,000 75.0 11,450,000 1,604,000 10.5

SOURCE: CIDA, Tenencia de la tierra y desarrollo socioeconómico, p. 107. CIDA used a complex formula for categorizing sierra land holdings into categories 1-4; criteria included the quality of land holdings and the purpose for which they were used, as well as the size. See CIDA report, p. 104. b This category includes lands held communally by indigenous peasant communities. The 808 communities included in this category might each have a population of 100-1,000 peasants. a

24

Peru: A Dual Society

Despite these difficulties, the data do reveal the extent to which land was concentrated in a few hands throughout the nation. In both the coast and the sierra, 75 to 80 percent of all arable land was contained in less than 2 percent of the agricultural units (Tables 2.2 and 2.3, category 4). Furthermore, many of the large property owners controlled several latifundios. If we could combine all land units owned by each hacendado, we would probably find that in both regions of the country nearly 80 percent of the land was owned by less than 1 percent of the rural population.14 The tremendous size of the sierra's largest haciendas cannot be fully appreciated from Table 2.3. In Puno, for example, there were 68 haciendas in 1960 with over 5,000 hectares (about 12,500 acres) of land (Table 2.4). The largest of these contained over 40,000 hectares (100,000 acres). In Huancavelica, another department of the mancha india, 179 latifundios—comprising 0.3 percent of all holdings in the department—contained 72.3 percent of the usable land (Table 2.5). Similar conditions of tenure existed in other departments of the southern sierra. In Apurímac, for example, 119 haciendas (comprising 0.3 percent of all land units) held 82.1 percent of the land. The size of these huge estates averaged nearly 5,000 hectares (12,500 acres). It has often been stated that in 1960 Peru and its agricultural wealth were controlled by forty families.15 This was probably someTABLE 2.4 Major Latifundios in Puno (1961) Size (Hectares) 5,000-10,000 10,000-20,000 20,000-30,000 30,000-46,000

Number 39 18 4 7

SOURCE: R. MacLeán y Estenos, La reforma agraria en el Perú, p. 40.

14

Some data on the degree of multiple ownership of latifundios are available in Carlos Malpica, Los dueños del Perú, pp. 71-130. Malpica's figures suggest that perhaps 100-200 families or corporations own the 920 largest coastal estates (Table 2.2, category 4). 15 For differing opinions of Peru's ruling oligarchy, see Carlos Astiz, Pressure

Peru: A Dual Society

25

TABLE 2.5 Major Latifundios in the Mancha India (1961)

Department Apurímac Ayacucho Huancavelica Puno

Number of Major Latifundios Landholdings (Over 500 Hectares) (%) 0.3 119 0.3 157 0.3 179 0.3 938

Land Area

(%)

82.1 59.2 72.3 80.0

SOURCE: Hugo Neira, Los Andes: Tierra o muerte, pp. 41-44.

thing of an exaggeration. However, in the southern highlands (the mancha india) and in many of the other sierra departments, several hundred latifundistas controlled 75 percent of the arable lands. At the other end of the spectrum were some 800,000 to 1 million highland families whose plots were so small that they lived on the edge of subsistence.16 This, then, was the state of land tenure in Peru during the early 1960's. The shortage of land for the sierra's villagers, the growing population pressure on community lands, and the presence of huge underutilized latifundios were the root causes of peasant unrest. The Sierra Hacienda Although large estates predominated in both the coastal area and the highlands, the socioeconomic and political consequences of latifundismo were quite distinct in each region. Social conditions within the latifundios and their relations with surrounding areas were based on two different economic systems. "The pattern of distribu-

Groups and Power Elites in Peruvian Politics. Also, François Bourricaud, Power and Society in Contemporary Peru; idem, "Structures and Functions of the Peruvian Oligarchy," Studies in Comparative International Development 2, no. 2 (1966): 17-31; and idem et al., La oligarquía en el Perú. 16 Table 2.3 indicates that there were over 590,000 independent peasant smallholders in the highlands with plots of 1-2 hectares (category 1). There were also several thousand indigenous communities (of which 808 are listed in category 5 of Table 2.3) with a combined population of over 500,000. Most of the villagers in these communities also owned very small plots of land.

26

Peru: A Dual Society

tion [of sierra lands] resembles very closely that of the coast, but it does not have the same meaning. The concentration of ownership on the coast represents the expansiveness of capitalistic enterprise, that of the sierra represents the survival of colonial latifundism."17 The social and economic underpinnings of Peru's highland haciendas date back to the Spanish conquest and early colonization (i.e., the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries). At that time, the Spanish crown instituted a system of control over the land and over the indigenous population known as the encomienda. Important Spanish settlers were given title to large tracts of land in the sierra and control over the Incan peasants living on the newly formed estates. These villagers were forced to serve the hacendado as a free labor force.18 Despite the many political and socioeconomic changes that transpired in Peru from the sixteenth through the twentieth centuries, the feudalistic hacienda system retained most of its early characteristics. As we have seen, in the early 1960's latifundios still encompassed over 75 percent of the sierra's cultivatable land and an even greater percentage of the southern highlands. A French scholar recently noted that the socioeconomic condition of many hacienda peons has not changed significantly for four centuries. 19 Thomas Ford adds: "In the sierra the indian still prepares his small plot of land with . . . a digging stick antedating the plow, improved in the past 400 years only through the addition of an iron point. He can afford no other implements and even if he could, the terrain is often too rugged to allow their use."20 By the twentieth century, these peons—known as colonos—were no longer compelled to remain on their haciendas, as they had been under the encomienda system. Yet, the scarcity of non-latifundio lands prevented the colono from acquiring a plot elsewhere. Furthermore, he was generally too far in debt to his patrón (his "patron," i.e., the hacendado) to leave. Thus, in effect, he and his family were tied to the hacienda like medieval serfs. "The individ17

Thomas R. Ford, Man and Land in Peru, p. 66. See George Pendle, A History of Latin America, pp. 46-47. "Henri Favre, La evolución y la situación de las haciendas en la región de Huancavelica, Perú, p. 18; reprinted in La hacienda en el Perú, ed. José Matos Mar, pp. 237-258. 20 Ford, Man and Land, p. 106. 18

Peru: A Dual Society

27

uals who [were] born on the hacienda died there and the destiny of the parents awaited the child."21 At the time of the sierra's rural upheavals in the 1960's the essence of the hacienda was still "a system of agricultural production and social relationships in which a stable population [of peons] is bound to the patrón or his representative by a series of personal obligations—actual or symbolic—which keeps him in a state of virtual servitude or, at least, in a primitive state of dependency." 22 The hacendado rented some 40 to 75 percent of his land to his colonos. He usually also loaned them tools and seed for the planting and harvesting seasons. During fiestas and in times of need (ill health, etc.), the peasant might be advanced a small sum of cash. Finally, the patrón offered his colono "protection" against harassment by the police or other outsiders. 23 In return for these "privileges," the peon assumed a series of obligaciones ("obligations") to his landlord. The most important of these was the provision of free labor for the hacendado's personal lands (i.e., the part not rented to colonos). In some parts of the mancha india, peons rendered 150 to 200 days of such labor a year.24 In other areas the work obligation was lower. But, in any event, the colono was usually forced to work on the hacendado's land during the planting and harvesting seasons when he (the peon) had the greatest need to work on his own plot. Often, the colono's family also had to contribute free labor—the wife as a domestic servant in the hacendados home, the children as domestics or as shepherds. 25 Finally, although the peon was granted usufruct of his plot, he 21

François Bourricaud, Cambios en Puno, p. 133. Favre, La evolución, p. 1. 23 Peasants who were arrested for drunkenness, for example, might be released after their patrón put in a good word for them. 24 Gustavo Palacio Pimentel, "Relaciones de trabajo entre el patrón y los colonos en los fundos de la provincia de Paucartambo," Revista Universitaria del Cuzco 46, no. 112 (1961): 174-222. 25 In some regions there were many more obligaciones, too numerous to detail here. Hacienda conditions varied from region to region and were generally most exploitative in the mancha india and less onerous in the more acculturated regions of the central highlands. See Wesley W. Craig, Jr., From Hacienda to Community; Bourricaud, Cambios en Puno; Favre, La evolución; and Palacio, "Relaciones de trabajo," for more detailed descriptions of hacienda conditions in modern Peru. 22

Peru: A Dual Society

28

usually could not determine what was to be grown there or how it would be disposed of. This decision remained in the hands of the landowner. When the crop was harvested, the peon might have to give 50 percent of it to his patrón for repayment of past debts and might be forced to sell him the remainder at prices that the hacendado determined. The peon either lacked the means of selling his crop in the open market or was prohibited from doing so. In short, until recently, the hacienda peon's life was totally controlled by the patrón. He was isolated from his fellow peasants, and most of his contacts with the outside world were mediated through the hacendado.26 Under these circumstances, it was tremendously difficult for colonos to organize politically or to challenge the hacienda system in any way. Consequently, in the twentieth century, peons participated in few revolts or organized peasant movements.27 The major contemporary mobilization of hacienda peons did not occur in the sierra, but in an atypical valley at the edge of the Peruvian jungle.28 Outside that region, colonos were a less-significant element in Peru's recent peasant mobilization. The Indigenous

Community

In the 1960's most highland peasants were not hacienda peons. In Puno, for example, only 140,000 campesinos out of a total of 650,000 were full-time colonos.29 Outside the mancha india, the proportion of peons within the total peasant population was somewhat lower. Thus, by the middle of the twentieth century, probably less than 20 percent of the highland peasantry was tied to the hacienda system. 26

See Chapter 3, below, for a more extensive discussion of this aspect of the peon's political and social situation. 27 For an account of colono revolts that did take place in Cuzco in the 1920's, see Jean Piel, "A propos d'un soulèvement rural péruvien au début du vingtième siècle: Tocroyoc (1921)," Revue d'histoire moderne et contemporaine 14 (October-December 1967): 375-405. Also see Chapters 5 and 6, below, for an account of colono unrest in recent times. 28 See Chapters 5 and 6, below, for an account of the colono movement in the valley of La Convención in the 1950's and 1960's. See also Craig, From Hacienda to Community; and Eric J. Hobsbawm, "Problèmes agraires à La Convención (Pérou)," in Les problèmes agraires des Amériques Latines. 29 Edward M. Dew, Jr., Politics in the Altiplano, p. 82.

Peru: A Dual Society

29

The majority of sierra campesinos lived in independent communities (comunidades indígenas). Throughout the highlands there were almost 6,000 such communities with a total population of over 3 million persons (about 70 to 75 percent of the sierra's rural population). 30 The position of the village comuneros in the 1960's was quite different from that of the colono. The villager controlled his own plot of land and generally marketed his crops as he saw fit. If he wished to do so, the comunero might leave the village and migrate to the city (an option not generally open to the hacienda peon). He might even leave his plot in the care of a relative and reclaim possession of it when he returned to the village. Thus, the comunero had long been more independent and selfreliant than the colono. Furthermore, he generally enjoyed a higher standard of living and was more integrated into the national economic and social system. While most peons were illiterate and voteless, many villagers (particularly in the central highlands) were enfranchised. A recent study of the mancha india showed that comuneros traveled more often than colonos to nearby cities, were more likely to own radios, and had a greater number of contacts with the nation's modern sector.31 The roots of the indigenous community stretch back to preColumbian Peru. At that time, the basic social unit of the Incan empire was the ayllu, "a clan of extended families living together in a restricted area with a common sharing of land, animals and crops. . . . Individually no one owned land, it belonged to the community. The ayllu had a definite territory and those living within it were 'loaned' as much land as was necessary for their well-being. . . . Everyone belonged to an ayllu. Each [village] was ruled by an elected leader . . . and guided by a council of old men."32 Most Andean communities have changed significantly since the days of the Incas. In the central highlands the peasants' way of life was strongly affected by Spanish influences. Yet, modern comunidades indígenas bore many similarities to the ancient ayllu. Technically, all the land in the village was communally owned (al80

Roberto MacLeán y Estenos, Sociología del Perú, pp. 254-262; Emilio Romero, Geografía económica del Perú, p. 26. 31 See Julio Cotler, Haciendas y comunidades tradicionales en un contexto de movilización política. 32 Von Hagen, Realm of the Incas, p. 46.

30

Peru: A Dual Society

though, in fact, each family was totally in control of the plot that they were allocated). Often, comuneros shared a single village pasture. Like the ayllu, the indigenous community sponsored communal work projects (irrigation ditches, roads, wells, etc.) in which villagers volunteered their labor. Finally, the comunidad indígena was a self-governing unit with elected officials patterned after the Incan community leaders. All family chiefs in the village were voting members of the community. Each year they elected a village council (the junta comunal), which consisted of a secretary and president of the council, and an officer who handled official dealings with the outside world (the personero).33 We have seen that the comuneros economic and political condition has traditionally been more favorable than the hacienda peon's. Yet, the indigenous communities have encountered many difficulties within the sierra power structures. Although peasant villages contained nearly 75 percent of the highlands' rural population, until recently they owned only 10 to 15 percent of the land (see Table 2.3, page 23). Consequently, most comunidades lacked sufficient land to support their populations. Moreover, the haciendas often held the best-quality lands and frequently controlled the local waterways. Finally, as we saw in Chapter 1, many of the peasant communities felt that the hacendados had stolen their lands over the years. 38

There has been a long and heated debate over the relationship between the Incan ayllu and the contemporary indigenous community. Some Peruvian scholars in the 1920's and 1930's romanticized the comunidad as an ideally communistic society. These authors, known as indigenistas ("indigenists"), believed that the comunidad indígena was a lineal descendant of the ayllu. A number of North American and European scholars have recently challenged this thesis. They feel that most indigenous communities have been changed by Spanish influences and bear little resemblance to the Incan ayllu. Furthermore, they contend that indigenous villages are differentiated along class lines—family landholdings may differ considerably in size—and, consequently, are not communistic. We will not be very concerned with this debate. It seems clear to me that the contemporary comunidad has elements of both Incan ayllu culture and later Spanish influences. See Hildebrando Castro Pozo, "Nuestra comunidad indígena; José Carlos Mariátegui, 7 ensayos de interpretación de la realidad peruana, pp. 66-70, for the most noted presentations of the indigenista thesis. Leading criticisms of the indigenista position are found in Henry F. Dobyns, The Social Matrix of Peruvian Indigenous Communities, pp. 1-25; Bourricaud, Cambios en Puno, pp. 88-92; and William Mangin, Las comunidades alteñas en la América Latina.

Peru: A Dual Society

31

Until the twentieth century, the comunidades were helpless in defending their rights against the hacendados. Since the villagers often lacked legally acceptable titles to their land, large landowners, protected by their white or mestizo allies in the local courts, could take village property with impunity. In the mancha india, hacendados could also force nearby villagers to contribute free labor for building roads or fences on the latifundios.34 Finally, many comuneros who lacked sufficient land to support themselves were forced to work occasionally as peons on neighboring haciendas. This increased the hacendados control over the community.35 In the early part of the twentieth century, intellectual groups sympathetic to the plight of the sierra's peasant villagers developed.36 In 1920 these men induced President Augusto Leguía to include in the new constitution provisions that recognized the comunidad indígena as a legal entity and afforded such villages some government protection. Under the terms of the constitution, a community seeking government recognition submitted an application to the Office of Indigenous Affairs (of the Ministry of Labor and Indigenous Affairs). Applications included a census of the village population, a map of the community's lands, town boundaries, and the necessary titles. Once the ministry officially recognized a community and registered its titles, village lands could not be seized by an outsider. Moreover, villagers were forbidden to sell their lands to nonresidents. According to the law, all lands were communally owned. Thus, if it had been effectively enforced, the new legislation would have prevented any further encroachments on the territory of recognized communities. In 1926 the Ministry of Labor recognized the first 59 communities in the nation. By 1958 nearly 1,500 villages had been recognized. Their total population was approximately 1 million—that is to say, over 30 percent of the sierra's rural population. In addition, there were over 4,500 communities that had not been officially recognized

34

See Bourricaud, Cambios en Puno. Dew, Politics in the Altiplano, p. 82, estimates that nearly 40 percent of Puno's 500,000 comuneros were also part-time colonos. 36 Hildebrando Castro Pozo and José Carlos Mariátegui eventually became the leading spokesmen for this group in later years (see n. 33, above). 35

32

Peru: A Dual Society 37

(Table 2.6). The number of recognized communities continued to increase annually into the 1960's so that by 1962 there were over 1,600.38 The purpose of President Leguía's constitutional amendment was to stabilize the relationship between the peasant village and the hacienda. The most important law subsequent to the 1920 constitution was the Peruvian Indigenous Community Statute of 1936. It reaffirmed the prohibition against the sale of village lands to noncomuneros and offered the community protection against the usurpation of their properties.39 TABLE 2.6 Peru's Indigenous Communities (1958) Department Ancash Apurímac Ayacucho Cajamarca Cuzco Huancavelica Huánuco Junín Lima Pasco Puno Others Total

Recognized Communities

101

73 141 41 204 136 78 274 230 39 30 125

1,472

Unrecognized Communities Ϊ74 251 82 419 1,691 47 93 18 70 14 1,366 289 4,514

Total 275" 324 223 460 1,895 183 171 292 300 53 1,396 414 5,986

SOURCE: R. MacLeán y Estenos, Sociología del Perú, p. 262.

Such statutes undoubtedly did afford the comunidades some protection from external exploitation. Once a community's boundaries were recognized by the Office of Indigenous Affairs, village leaders 37 Many unrecognized villages were too poor to pay the needed legal fees, were not sophisticated enough to know about registering, or lacked sufficient leadership. This was particularly true in the mancha india. Other more-advanced communities were just not interested in registering with the Ministry, particularly if they were not involved in any land disputes and were not threatened by a hacienda. 38 Dobyns, The Social Matrix, pp. 1-2. 39 See Ulrich P. Ritter, Comunidades indígenas y cooperativismo en el Perú, pp. 26-28.

Peru: A Dual Society

33

could secure court orders against hacendados who tried to violate them. However, the laws did not put an end to serious conflicts between peasant villages and latifundios. Obviously, the more than three thousand villages that were not officially recognized as indigenous communities did not benefit from such legislation. The backward communities of the mancha india often lacked the necessary funds and knowledge to secure government recognition. Yet those very communities were most in need of protection. Moreover, villages that applied for ministry recognition often lacked sufficient titles to prove which land was theirs. A village's sixteenth-century titles might be too vague to be legally acceptable. Since most titles issued under the Spanish crown and in the early days of the Republic were written by officials who had not traveled to the areas described in the documents, government functionaries frequently issued conflicting titles to the same property. Finally, the sierra had many paid document forgers (called tinteros) who produced "ancient titles" for a fee.40 When a community presented its claims to a court, it might find that the hacendado whom they were challenging had real or forged titles to the same land. For these reasons, comunidades that believed their lands had been stolen usually had to engage in long and costly court battles. Lawyers had to be hired, village officials dispatched to the department capital or to Lima, and court fees paid. In 1962 Ulrich Ritter and Héctor Martínez surveyed the leaders of some 750 officially recognized indigenous communities. They found that one-third of the villages had legal actions concerning land disputes pending against nearby haciendas. Fifty percent of the villages engaged in such disputes had spent over $150 during the preceding year in legally related expenses. Fifteen communities had spent over $1,500. Backward villages in the mancha india could ill afford to pay such sums. Many villages were spending 50 percent of their budget on land disputes. Such expenditures had to be diverted from other community projects—wells, schools, roads, and the like. Moreover, these expenses might continue over a number of years. One village in Cuzco had been engaged in a land struggle for forty-four years. Not surprisingly, Ritter and Martínez found that the costs of land disputes were literally bankrupting many communities. 41 40

See ibid.; and Bourricaud, Cambios en Puno. Ritter, Comunidades indígenas, pp. 28-34.

41

34

Peru: A Dual Society

Finally, comunidades that participated in the legal system tended to be at a disadvantage. Although the Office of Indigenous Affairs was created to assist the nation's indigenous communities in such matters, it was always understaffed and ill equipped to aid its constituents. Government officials in Lima and the department capitals were far removed from the world of the comunidades. In the early 1960's the Office of Indigenous Affairs had only one person who could translate Spanish into Quechua. 42 Thus, it could not deal with hundreds of comunidades whose members spoke virtually no Spanish. Villagers who went into court with land disputes were often unable to understand the language in which the proceedings were held. They were even less likely to understand the legal technicalities surrounding their cases. Since the hacendados could usually afford to hire better lawyers and bring in more expert testimony than could the comuneros, peasants were at a further disadvantage. Finally, judges in local courts were often friends or relatives of the hacendado and might not be very impartial. Thus, legislation governing the comunidades indígenas failed to put an end to serious land disputes between latifundistas and comuneros. Hundreds of villages throughout the sierra spent much time and money over a number of years vainly trying to recover their lands. In the eyes of their leaders, there was little hope of legally regaining community lands. They believed that the government was controlled by los ricos ("the rich")—the landlords and their allies.43 Many of them shared a deep-seated resentment against the large landowners and felt exploited by the political and economic system that gave the hacendados support. The grievances of the comuneros were not as severe as those of the hacienda peons. However, the comuneros were in a better position to react against perceived injustices. As we shall see in subsequent chapters, the internal structure of the comunidad, the villagers' cooperative experience, and their common heritage served as an effective base for political mobilization. Throughout the twentieth century, most peasant uprisings were carried out by comuneros, 42

Cotler, "La mecánica de la dominación," p. 173. See Chapters 7-9, below, for a discussion of the political attitudes of comunidad leaders. 43

Peru: A Dual Society

35 44

rather than by colonos. The same was true of the land-seizure movement in the early 1960's.45 Consequently, the political behavior and attitudes of colonos and coastal plantation workers will be discussed in this study only in so far as they influenced the center of peasant political unrest—the indigenous peasant community. 46 44 See Chapter 6, below; see also Carleton Beals, Fire on the Andes, pp. 322323. 45 As previously noted, in 1960 there were more than 3 million comuneros and 900,000 hacienda peons. "We have seen that the concentration of land into large latifundios was even more extreme on the coast than in the sierra. Less than 2 percent of coastal latifundios contained 80 percent of the land (see Table 2.2). Yet, there was no rural unrest on the coast during the 1960's. Moreover, throughout the twentieth century, there has been less violence and discontent on the coast than in the highlands. Why is this so? Essentially, the relationship of the modern, capitalistic, coastal plantation to the area surrounding it was quite distinct from that of the feudal sierra hacienda. To begin with, there are virtually no indigenous peasant communities on the coast. Thus, when the coastal plantations became a major sector in coastal agriculture at the turn of the century, they expanded either by irrigating formerly unusable land or by buying out independent smallholders. In the latter case, there were some social tensions, but, unlike the highland comuneros, the isolated coastal smallholders were simply pushed aside and did not become a breeding ground for rural unrest. Furthermore, coastal plantation workers were not feudal peons, but rather a salaried rural proletariat. Although many plantation workers had migrated from the sierra, they bore little cultural or economic resemblance to the indigenous highland peasant. In the 1930's and 1940's organizers from the APRA party (American Popular Revolutionary Alliance), Peru's major populist party, created the first plantation workers' unions on the coast. Unionization was strongly opposed by the plantation owners, and, since it was usually banned and persecuted by the government, APRA was forced to operate clandestinely most of the time. From 1956 onward (after the resignation of dictator Manuel Odría), however, APRA was able to organize freely on the coast. Hundreds of plantations were organized into one of two unions: the Peruvian Federation of Sugar Workers (FTAP) or the larger Peruvian National Federation of Campesinos (FENCAP). Both unions belonged to the APRA-dominated Peruvian Confederation of Workers (CTP). By 1964 the Ministry of Labor had officially registered 250 coastal plantations whose members were unionized. Since redistribution of plantation lands would be detrimental to the economic interests of the workers, the FTAP and FENCAP have never shared the highland peasantry's interest in land reform. While the sierra campesinos—both peons and villagers—desired the demise of the highland latifundio, the coastal agricultural workers did not want their plantations dismantled. Instead, their unions sought moderate trade-union goals—job security, higher wages, and im-

36

Peru: A Dual Society

The major focus of this investigation will be on the comunidad indígena and the mobilization of hundreds of villages throughout the sierra from 1961 to 1964. proved working and living conditions. Furthermore, APRA agricultural unions sought these goals by operating within the legitimate political system. They abstained from violent or radical activities and, in recent years, have rarely even struck. From 1961 to 1965, 73 percent of the coastal plantations that had been organized by the FENCAP or the FTAP did not carry out a single strike. Thus, when hundreds of highland communities invaded hacienda lands in the 1960's—often with accompanying violence—the agricultural unions on the coast completely disassociated themselves from the peasant movement even though many of their members were of peasant origin. Moreover, by the 1960's, APRA and its affiliated unions were no longer the radical firebrands that they had been at their inception in the 1930's. The coastal agricultural unions had turned into fairly conservative groups more interested in the short-term interests of their members than in any basic reform of the nation's political and economic systems. They showed little concern for the peasants of the sierra. Thus, the rural unrest of the 1960's remained confined to the highlands. For further discussion of the political and socioeconomic aspects of plantation labor relations, see Ford, Man and Land; François Bourricaud, "La reforma agraria en el Peru," Oiga (Lima), January 20, 1967, pp. 32-34, and January 27, 1967, pp. 32-35; J. Cotler and F. Portocarrero, Organizaciones campesinas del Perú; and José Matos Mar, Los movimientos y organizaciones campesinas en el valle de Chancay.

3. THE SOCIAL STRUCTURE OF THE TRADITIONAL SIERRA

The principal agricultural units of the highlands have traditionally been the hacienda and the indigenous community. "The history of the Peruvian sierra [was] the struggle for land between the landowner and the indian community, a struggle that the landowner [was] constantly winning."1 In the succeeding pages, we will examine the socioeconomic milieu within which that conflict took place. Through most of Peru's history, political and social institutions in the highlands operated within a class structure that rigidly defined an individual's behavior. Until recently that structure permitted very little upward mobility for those at the base of the social pyramid. Of course, social norms varied somewhat from region to region, and the brief description that follows may not sufficiently indicate such differences.2 However, there were certain uniformities that characterized the highlands and set them apart from the more modernized Peruvian coast. The most significant of these characteristics was the control that the upper classes exerted over the Indian peas1

Carlos Astiz, Pressure Groups and Power Elites in Peruvian Politics, p. 85. The succeeding pages are based on several studies of the social hierarchy in various regions of the sierra. See William Mangin, Las comunidades alteñas en la América Latina, pp. 5-21; Edward Μ. Dew, Jr., Politics in the Altiplano, pp. 88-120; Aníbal Quijano Obregón, "El movimiento campesino peruano y sus líderes," América Latina 8 (October-December 1965): 43-65. 2

38

The Social Structure of the Traditional Sierra

antry. In large part, the political mobilization of highland communities in the 1960's was an attempt to break down that control. The "Criollo" Elite At the peak of the sierra's hierarchy stood the criollo elite, the rural aristocracy that was of Spanish descent. Its members included the mine owners, ranking government officials, and latifundistas (owners of the largest estates). They traditionally controlled most of the highland's political and economic activities. Almost invariably they were white, though occasionally they included a few mestizos (men with Indian ancestors who had been fully acculturated into white European culture). Ironically, while this stratum was the dominant class in sierra life, its primary interests and orientations lay elsewhere. In recent times, most of the area's major land and mine owners left their rural properties to live in the more comfortable and cosmopolitan atmosphere of the department capital, or Lima, or a foreign land. Members of the elite usually traced their ancestry back to the early Spanish colonial settlers. However, some were of non-Spanish origin, and a few were citizens of other nations.3 Whatever their origins, they shared one important characteristic—control over the highlands' links to the national (and international) political and economic systems. Together they owned all the mines, ranches, and farms that produced goods for markets on the coast and abroad. Consequently, their attitudes influenced any important political decisions emanating from Lima to the highlands. The Lower-Upper Class Directly beneath the criollo elite came the lower-upper class, a group that was more directly and intimately involved in the day-today life of the sierra. Here one found local government and church officials, urban professionals, major merchants, and the small and medium-sized hacendados. Often these men administered the prop-

3

North American and European mine owners, for example. Technically, of course, they were not members of the criollo elite since they were not of Spanish origin. But, for all practical purposes, they occupied the same social position as the creoles.

The Social Structure of the Traditional Sierra

39

erties and affairs of the elite. Others were fairly autonomous, with their own sphere of economic or political control. For the most part, the lower-upper class was mestizo, born and raised in the regions in which they operated. Although they partook in the national (i.e., white coastal) culture, their actual contacts with Lima were fairly limited. Spanish was their primary language, but in the mancha india most spoke Quechua (or Aymará) as well. Because these hacendados, government officials, and administrators actually lived in the highlands, they were the men with whom the comunero peasants had to deal in their struggle for the land. Consequently, when peasant unrest broke out in the sierra, it was directed primarily against the lower-upper class, rather than toward the criollo elite. The Middle Class In the provincial and district capitals of the highlands and in large mestizo villages lived the bureaucrats, police, merchants, artisans, and craftsmen who constituted the rural middle class. They were a more heterogeneous group than the classes above them and could conceivably be divided into two classes, upper middle and lower middle. The more established members of the middle sector were mestizos who spoke Spanish fluently and were literate. Their children often attended the department university or one of the national universities in Lima. The lower echelons of the middle sector were composed of cholos. Unlike the mestizo, who had dropped almost all aspects of his Indian heritage, the cholo combined elements of Quechua and Spanish speech, dress, and customs. Generally, he was the son of an Indian peasant who had achieved a primary school education and aspired to membership in the mestizo middle class. While most of the lower-middle class voted and participated in national politics on a limited basis, they did not significantly influence the sierra power structure. On the whole, they were a transitional class Unking the Indian peasant masses with the mestizo and white upper class. Whenever opportunities existed for upward mobility, the cholos tended to identify with the classes above them. However, when there was little possibility of social advancement, they would sometimes ally with the peasantry, thereby providing the campesinos with valuable leadership. As we shall see, the peasants' potential for

The Social Structure of the Traditional Sierra

40

political mobilization was strongly influenced by the type of alliances that the cholo lower-middle class formed.4 The Lower Class Most of the highlands' rural inhabitants belonged to the lower class. They constituted between 50 percent (in the central sierra) and 80 percent (in the mancha india) of that region's population. Virtually all of them were peasants—landless day laborers, hacienda peons, and village smallholders. Although there was a social hierarchy within the indigenous community, even the highest-ranking comunero was a member of the lower class in the broader context of the sierra's social pyramid.5 In the mancha india the entire peasant population was Indian; in the central and northern highlands campesinos were usually cholos. In either region, the peasant always knew that he was subordinate to the mestizos and whites above him. Together, the villager and the peon constituted the base of the sierra's social pyramid. Thus, the class structure of the highlands was defined in occupational and cultural (or racial) terms, with a high degree of overlap between those two factors. Speaking of the social hierarchy in Puno, François Bourricaud noted: Nobody would classify a lawyer or a doctor in the indigenous class, nor a military or a police officer. . . . The occupations which require no previous instruction are allocated exclusively to the indians. . . . Inversely we can say that the characteristic of being white or mestizo is incompatible with the performance of certain activities. The hacienda peon is always an indian. In his turn, the mestizo, however low his condition, occupies a position which imbues him with a minimal amount of authority. . . . An indian [however] never occupies a position which affords him a high level of prestige. 6 4

For conflicting views of the role of the cholo in Peruvian peasant politics, see Quijano, "El movimiento campesino"; and David Chaplin, "Peru's Postponed Revolution," World Politics 20 (April 1968): 393-420. 5 Similarly, although all comuneros were higher in the social pyramid than virtually any peon, villagers were still considered lower class. For a discussion of social differentiation within indigenous communities, see Gustavo Palacio Pimentel, "Relaciones de trabajo entre el patrón y los colonos en los fundos de la provincia de Paucartambo," Revista Universitaria del Cuzco 46, no. 112 (1961): 174-222. 6 François Bourricaud, Cambios en Puno, p. 14.

The Social Structure of the Traditional Sierra

41

The Peasant and the Culture of Domination By definition, members of the peasantry lacked control over the economic and political operations that dominated their Uves. According to anthropologist Eric Wolf, the peasant is a "rural cultivator whose surpluses are transferred to a dominant group of rulers that uses that surplus both to underwrite its own standard of living and to distribute the remainder to [other] groups in society."7 The basis of this relationship, he adds, is "a social order in which some men, through their power, can demand payment from others. . . . The peasant's gain is the power holder's gain, for the fund of rent provided by the peasant is part of the fund of power on which the controllers may draw. . . . Peasant denotes an asymmetrical structural relationship between producers of surplus and controllers."8 The peasants whom we will be examining in this study were traditionally powerless in their economic and political dealings. Peon and villager alike lived in what Julio Cotler and Henri Favre call "a culture of domination." 9 Within the hacienda the control of the gamonal ("boss") over his peasants emanated directly from his ownership of land. As we have seen, the tenant also depended upon his patrón for tools, seed, and credit. Following the harvest, he was often obliged to sell his crop to the hacendado, even if he could have received a higher price on the open market. In addition, the peon and his family depended on their hacendado for most social services. Since the state did not provide schools on the highland latifundios, tenants depended on the patrón to provide an education for their children. Since the patrón's power over his colonos stemmed partially from the peasant's illiteracy and ignorance, landowners were obviously reluctant to build these schools. A study of haciendas in the southern department of Huancavelica indicated that in the early 1960's not a single estate in the depart7

Eric R. Wolf, Peasants, pp. 3-4. Ibid., p. 10. 9 Julio Cotler, "La mecánica de la dominación interna y del cambio social en la sociedad rural," in Perú problema, by José Matos Mar et al., reprinted in English in Studies in Comparative International Development 3, no. 12 (19671968): 229-246; Henri Favre, La evolución y la situación de las haciendas en la región de Huancavelica, Perú, reprinted in La hacienda en el Perú, ed. José Matos Mar, pp. 237-258. 8

42

The Social Structure of the Traditional Sierra 10

ment had a school. Similarly, prior to the mobilization of the peasants in the province of La Convención (Cuzco), "few hacendados provided any educational facilities for . . . the children of the peasants. . . . The prevailing attitude of the hacendados was a firm insistence that their workers needed no such frills." Most landowners in the province felt that "education makes agitators out of workers."11 The hacendados control over his colonos extended into the political sphere. The peon generally did not vote, since he was not literate. Moreover, he was accustomed to accepting the political hegemony of his patrón. "The lower kind of people [peasants] recognized the political and moral authority" of the dominant class.12 All these conditions created a "crisis of access" to the national political system.13 The hacendado kept his peons not only isolated from the outside world but also separated from each other. Wesley Craig describes the colonos' situation in one area of Cuzco: "The indian peasants . . . had very limited contact with anyone outside of the hacienda. . . . Even among themselves there was little social activity . . . that was not instigated or directed by the whims of the hacendado. Contact between haciendas by the indian tenant farmers was virtually nonexistent. The hacendados discouraged extra-hacienda social intercourse."14 It appears, then, that the landowners consciously tended to prevent the peons from developing any sense of mutual identity or class consciousness. The capacity of the patrón to divide and rule his colonos was a critical element of his power.15 This cultural system (in which the lord mediated all contact among peons and between peasant and the outside world) has been described as a "triangle without a base."16 (See Fig. 3.1.) 10

Favre, La evolución. Wesley W. Craig, Jr., From Hacienda to Community, pp. 20-21. 12 Gideon Sjoberg, "Folk and Feudal Societies," American Journal of Sociology 58 (November 1952): 234. 13 Cotler, "La mecánica de la dominación," p. 197. 14 Craig, From Hacienda to Community, p. 19. 16 Within the hacienda, the landowner encouraged peons to compete among themselves for the limited number of favors that their patrón could bestow on them. Colonos might even spy on each other and report suspicious activities to the hacendado in order to curry his favor. 16 F. LaMond Tullís, Lord and Peasant in Peru, pp. 42-45; the concept originated with Peruvian sociologist Julio Cotler. 11

43

The Social Structure of the Traditional Sierra

As we can see, in the system depicted in the diagram, all the peon's social, economic, and poHtical contacts were mediated through the hacendado, who served as a vortex for the peasant's social relationships. However, at the base of the triangular relationship between colonos and the patrón there were no ties linking the peons to one another. That is to say, the social triangle had no base. The peasant's isolation has long inhibited his political mobilization and organization. Marx felt that because of this isolationcommon to village smallholders as well as manorial serfs—peasants could not develop a sense of class consciousness. "The smallholding

Fig. 3.1.

The Triangle without a Base

peasants form a vast mass, whose members live in similar conditions but without entering into manifold relations with one another. Their mode of production isolates them from one another instead of bringing them into mutual intercourse. . . . In so far as there is merely a local interconnection among the small-holding peasants, and the identity of their interests begets no community, no national bond and no political organization among them, they do not form a class."17 The Culture of Domination and the Indigenous

Community

The inhabitants of the sierra's indigenous communities were ob17 Karl Marx in Selected Writings in Sociology and Social Philosophy, ed. T. B. Bottomore and Maximillian Rubel, pp. 188-189.

44

The Social Structure of the Traditional Sierra

viously in a far better position than were the hacienda peons to establish independent links with the outside world and with each other. Even in the mancha india, comuneros were more likely to speak Spanish, vote, travel to nearby cities, and market their crops independently of the local hacendado.18 Moreover, they owned their own land and could not easily be expelled from it. Yet, they too were subjected to the control of the white-mestizo power structure, albeit in a more complex and indirect manner than were the peons. While comuneros owned their own plots, they often depended on outsiders for aid in marketing their crop, securing credit, and obtaining other economic necessities. According to Robert Redfield, all peasants—including smallholders—are not culturally equipped to deal with the modern urban world. They are, consequently, marginal to the nation's political and economic systems and must depend on outsiders to serve as mediators with the national culture. These nonpeasants, says Redfield, function as "a hinge between the local life of a peasant community and the state or feudal system of which [the village] is a part."19 Not surprisingly, the vital function of mediating between the highland comunidad and the outside world fell into the hands of the area's major hacendado or to other white and mestizo gamonales in nearby towns. Thus, while the indigenous community may technically have been independent of the hacienda system, it frequently remained under the hacendado's control. As William F. Whyte notes, "The hacienda system . . . tends to extend mestizo domination over the indians [or cholos] in indigenous communities which are technically and legally free but which find themselves very much under the domination of the mestizo authorities . . . [in a] situation of extreme inequality of power resources."20 François Bourricaud and Julio Cotler describe a system of gamonalismo, or bossism, under which the major hacendados and mestizo merchants, police, and bureaucrats kept the village peasantry under their rule. "Even the lowest level of mestizo occupied a posi18 For a comparison of the social levels of comuneros and peons in Cuzco, see Julio Cotler, Haciendas y comunidades tradicionales en un contexto de movilización política. 19 Robert Redfield, Peasant Society and Culture, p. 27. 20 William F. Whyte, "The Myth of the Passive Peasant," p. 7.

The Social Structure of the Traditional Sierra

45 21

tion of authority" relative to the Indian or cholo comunero. A village that sought aid from the political system had to approach a local gamonal. "In the indigenous communities [of the sierra] the indians have their own authorities . . . who have the function of maintaining ties with the power system, receiving orders from the mestizos, seeing to it that they are executed . . . and seeking the favors of the mestizos."22 Thus, the highland village network contained many of the characteristics of the "triangle without a base" that Cotler described in relation to the hacienda. Each county (or district) in the sierra contained a district capital, which was usually mestizo, and a number of annexes (anexos) populated by Indians or cholos. The district capital housed the local representatives of the national political system—the alcalde (equivalent to a "mayor") and the gobernador ("county chief"), both of whom were appointed by the prefect of the province.23 The bankers, merchants, police, and bureau-

Fig. 3.2.

The Comunidad

and the Triangle without a Base

crats of the rural sierra also came from the district capital. Thus, just as the hacendado controlled the peon's relations with the outside world, the district capital mediated all of the comunidad's contacts with the national socioeconomic and political systems. Often the mestizo gamonales of the district capital were also related to, or allied with, the largest hacendados in the area. In the process of political mobilization that we will be examin21

Bourricaud, Cambios en Puno, p. 14. Cotler, "La mecánica de la dominación," p. 170. 23 See Wells Ν. Allred, "Government outside Lima, the National Capital."

22

46

The Social Structure of the Traditional Sierra

ing, the sierra village peasants challenged the traditional "culture of domination" in two respects. First, they organized regional federations of communities that were designed to create, between indigenous villages, links that had never existed before. That is to say, the comunidades tried to close the base of the triangle depicted in Figure 3.2. In doing this, federation leaders hoped to create a level of class consciousness that had not previously existed.24 Second, 24

It is sometimes argued that the peasantry's isolation and lack of class consciousness—noted previously by Marx—have been as much the result of the villagers' own attitudes as of any conscious attempt by the hacendados or gamonales to isolate them. A number of social scientists—particularly anthropologists who have studied peasants extensively—argue that peasant culture is inherently fatalistic and that peasants are incapable of common endeavors because they see no possibility of common gain. Thus, George M. Foster suggests that "peasants view their social, economic and natural universe . . . as one in which all desired things in life . . . exist in finite quantity and are always in short supply. . . . There is no way directly within the peasant's power (as he sees it) to increase the available quantities. . . . 'Good,' like land, is seen as inherent in nature, there to be redivided, if necessary, but not to be augmented" ("Peasant Society and the Image of Limited Good," American Anthropologist 67 [April 1965]: 296297). Foster feels that the peasant's belief in a limited quantity of economic benefits in the universe (i.e., a limited good that precludes economic growth) leads the villager to conclude that "if someone is . . . to get ahead, logically it can only be at the expense of others in the village" ("Interpersonal Relations in Peasant Societies," Human Organization 19 [Winter 1960-1961]: 176). Under these circumstances, says Foster, peasants are not only fatalistic about the possibility of change, but also distrustful of each other. "Most of [a village's] people are naturally uncooperative. . . . In a society ruled by the implicit model of a static economy, voluntary cooperation can be expected to [promote] change only under exceptional conditions" (ibid., p. 178). In a well-known study of a southern Italian peasant community, Edward C. Banfield reached similar conclusions. Banfield feels that the peasants he knew were guided by an ethos of "amoral familism," which dictated that one could trust and fruitfully cooperate only with a member of one's own extended family. Beyond that, villagers were unable "to act together for their common good or, indeed, for any end transcending the immediate, material interest of the nuclear family" (The Moral Basis of a Backward Society, pp. 9-10). In studies of peasants in other regions of the world, such scholars as Oscar Lewis and Eric Wolf have reached similar conclusions. If this picture of peasant attitudes is applicable to the Peruvian sierra, an additional barrier would exist to peasant unity and class consciousness. We have seen (see p. 30, above) that there is evidence of a fairly high level of cooperation within the comunidades indígenas. This would seem to indicate that the peasants whom we will

The Social Structure of the Traditional Sierra

47

peasant federations tried to forge direct links between the comunidades and the national social and political systems (i.e., the national culture) that would not be mediated by the mestizo power structure. Only by accomplishing these two tasks could the peasant villagers hope to become independent participants in the Peruvian political system. be studying—the sierra comuneros—are not guided by "amoral familism.,, However, much debate lingers over the nature of comunero attitudes toward progress and cooperation. To some scholars the comunero is a very cooperative and admirable person. (See Chapter 2, n. 33, above, for a discussion of the indigenista theory.) For others, "it is not easy to idealize the Peruvian serrano. He is . . . a demoralized human being . . . in many respects his own worst enemy" (Chaplin, "Peru's Postponed Revolution," p. 413). A major objective of this study will be to probe the attitudes of sierra villagers to ascertain whether or not they are inclined toward cooperation and to see how such attitudes might affect their potential for political mobilization (Chapters 7-9, below).

4. SOCIAL CHANGE AND THE BREAKDOWN OF TRADITIONAL SOCIETY

The preceding chapters presented an overview of the traditional sierra social structure. For the most part, it was a static picture of conditions that existed, with slight variation, for hundreds of years. During the course of Peruvian history, new groups and classes entered into highland society. Teachers, professionals, mine operators, bureaucrats, and a lower-middle class of cholos took their places in the social hierarchy. But, until recently, such changes had not altered the basic nature of the "culture of domination"—the subordination of the Indian peasant masses to the white or mestizo ruling class. During the postwar years there were still areas of the sierra in which class relations retained their age-old, feudal character. In the southern departments of the mancha india, for example, the hacienda colonos lived in the manner of their ancestors four hundred years before them.1 But, in most of the highlands, developments in the 1940's and 1950's brought indigenous peasant communities into more-direct contact with the modern national culture. The traditional social system came to serve as the background against which the forces of change played their roles. Having viewed that background, we can turn our attention to the more modern and dynamic elements in sierra rural life. 1 Henri Favre, La evolución y la situación de las haciendas en la región de Huancavelica, Perú, reprinted in La hacienda en el Perú, ed. José Matos Mar, pp. 237-258.

Social Change and the Breakdown of Traditional Society

49

Mining and Mineral Refining in the Sierra The modernization of Peru's economy began in the early part of the twentieth century, largely under the impetus of foreign investment. Such investment was initially directed into coastal sugar and cotton plantations. However, in 1901 the Cerro de Pasco Copper Corporation, founded by J. Pierpont Morgan, invested $10 million for copper extraction in the central highlands (principally in the department of Pasco). Coal, lead, and zinc mines were also opened. 2 Because Pasco's mineral deposits were located at extremely high altitudes (10,000-15,000 feet above sea level), the only people capable of working in the mines were the region's inhabitants. Consequently, the Cerro Corporation drew its workers from the surrounding comunidades. In time mining became an important source of income for villagers who could not support themselves on the land. Although wages in the mines were relatively high, comuneros found the work unattractive and viewed mining as a stopgap measure that would be abandoned as soon as they had made enough money to return to their plots of land. Villagers believed that the dust in the mines affected their lungs adversely, and, consequently, they rarely worked there more than five or ten years. 3 Furthermore, most peasants disliked life in the mining town of Cerro de Pasco and longed to return to their villages. For these reasons, there was always a high turnover in the Cerro Corporation's work force. This factor increased the number of comuneros who were exposed to the influences of mining life. Although the Cerro Corporation never employed more than twenty thousand miners at any given time, the total number of peasants in Pasco with mining experience was far greater. In 1922 the Cerro Corporation opened a large metal refinery in the city of La Oroya (in the department of Junín). Once again the company looked to the surrounding communities for its labor force. The La Oroya refineries substantially increased the number of village peasants who became involved in modern salaried occu2

Carlos Astiz, Pressure Groups and Power Elites in Peruvian Politics, pp. 234-235. 3 Interview with Alfredo Paredes, public-relations officer of the Cerro de Pasco Corporation.

50

Social Change and the Breakdown of Traditional Society 4

pations. Almost every indigenous community in the northern part of Junín and in the department of Pasco had some members who had worked in either the mines or the refineries. As metal workers, the village peasants of the central sierra entered into a new set of social relationships that differed from their previous roles in a number of important ways. "In general, the search for work brings them into contact with other peasants with whom experiences can be shared and tales interchanged: they are given the possibility of communicating and identifying themselves with other peasants and workers in the cities and towns and countryside. The contact . . . with industrial workers, especially with miners . . . gives [the peasant] a taste of unions, of class conflict rather than submissiveness, of the possibilities inherent in class organization, and provides them with new explanations of social reality."5 Thus, miners who returned to the comunidades would have established contacts with peasants from other villages whom they had met in the mines. They could serve as links between communities that shared common problems and thereby end their villages' traditional isolation. As we shall see, some comuneros with experience in the mines or refineries played important roles in the development of regional peasant federations in the l960's. Peasants who entered the working class through the mining industry also encountered a set of modern social norms that were quite different from those they had known in the campo ("countryside"). The operators of the mines were members of the white sierra elite and, as such, commanded a certain degree of deference from their workers. However, as newcomers to the highlands, their relationship with the cholo masses was far more impersonal and universalistic than the traditional hacendado-comunero relationship. "The development of foreign-owned, large-scale units of production based on the employment of masses of wage laborers destroyed traditionalism and paternalism. . . . Relations between management, 4

The refineries in Junín had a lower turnover than did the Pasco mines, but their standing work force was nearly twice as large. Perhaps 40,000 people worked in the La Oroya plants. 5 James Petras and Maurice Zeitlin, "Agrarian Radicalism in Chile," British Journal of Sociology 19 (September 1968): 258. Although the authors were describing conditions in Chile, this statement is also applicable to Peru.

Social Change and the Breakdown of Traditional Society

51

often foreign, and labor were largely based on universalistic norms. . . . The very fact that [former peasants] worked for wages . . . and that they had no reciprocal relations to a particular patrón . . . means that they are unlikely to be subjected to . . . patriarchal domination or to develop particularistic loyalties."6 Finally, the comuneros who worked in the mines and refineries were organized into unions affiliated with the populistic APRA party. While Peruvian miners were not as radical as their Chilean or Bolivian counterparts, they were always more militant than the average peasant villager. In the 1950's there were a number of violent strikes in Cerro and La Oroya. 7 It is likely that the miners carried their new militancy and class consciousness back to their native villages when they returned home. In the early 1960's the comunidades adjoining the Pasco and Junín copper (and zinc) industry were centers of peasant unrest. 8 The Development

of Modern

Ranching

The opening of the central sierra's mineral resources was closely related to the introduction of modern livestock raising. Soon after the Cerro Corporation built its refineries in La Oroya, hacendados and communities in the adjoining Mantaro River valley charged that the industrial plant's sulfurous fumes were destroying vegetation in the area. The valley's latifundio owners demanded compensation, and the government ultimately ordered Cerro to purchase affected lands in northern Junín and the neighboring depart6

Ibid., pp. 256 and 258-259. François Bourricaud, Power and Society in Contemporary Peru, pp. 93-104. 8 In their study of rural radicalism in Chile, Petras and Zeitlin showed that peasants living in close proximity to copper mines tended to vote more heavily than did other peasants for the socialist-communist Popular Front Coalition (FRAP). They hypothesized that the miners—who were organized into militant communist labor unions—"supply legal, political and economic resources to aid the peasant concretely, and thus demonstrate to them the power of organization and of struggle in defense of their common interests against the landowners." The authors also suggested that the miners' union provided an organizational framework to link previously isolated peasant communities and at the same time created a "radical political culture" in the areas surrounding the mines. This diffusion of class consciousness and militancy may have occurred in the central sierra of Peru. See Petras and Zeitlin, "Miners and Agrarian Radicalism," in Latin America: Reform or Revolution? ed. James Petras and Maurice Zeitlin, pp. 235-249. 7

52

Social Change and the Breakdown of Traditional Society

ment of Lima. As a result, in 1924 the company acquired 320,000 hectares (some 800,000 acres) of property near La Oroya. The lands that it purchased did not remain idle. Although the refinery's fumes affected agricultural production adversely, the Cerro Corporation discovered that certain strains of sheep could be raised profitably in the area. 9 The company eventually opened up livestock estates beyond the La Oroya lands they had been forced to buy. Sheep haciendas were started in Pasco, in the south of Junín (near the commercial city of Huancayo), and in the department of Lima. These large latifundios were operated somewhat differently from the traditional feudal haciendas that had dominated the highlands until the 1920's. Administrators used modern agricultural and breeding techniques, with stress on extensive use of land and capital. Only a small labor force was required, and this was drawn from neighboring indigenous communities. The Cerro Corporation's more impersonal labor relations and production methods were adopted by Peruvian livestock firms owning other ranches in the same region. In later years, semicapitalistic ranching also spread into the mancha india (particularly in the department of Puno) but on a far more limited scale. Like the mines, the sheep estates introduced many workers to relatively modern universalistic norms. Hacienda employees on a latifundio owned by a foreign corporation often related differently to their employer than they had toward the traditional feudal hacendados and gamonales. The introduction of new norms somewhat undermined the old order. Moreover, the development of huge 9

Some Peruvian critics of the Cerro de Pasco Corporation assert that the company was aware of the effect that its refineries would have on neighboring agriculture since it had previous experience with this problem elsewhere. Soon after the corporation purchased these properties, it introduced filters onto the smokestacks of their plants, which allegedly reduced the emission of pollutants considerably. Consequently, some authorities feel that the company was not forced to buy nearby haciendas, but rather was anxious to buy them at a good price before introducing the filters. At the same time, by displacing local agriculture, the corporation secured a cheap source of labor (for the mines and refineries) from surrounding comunidades. See Comité Interamericano de Desarrollo Agrícola ( C I D A ) , Tenencia de la tierra y desarrollo socioeconómico del sector agrícola: Perú, pp. 23-26.

Social Change and the Breakdown of Traditional Society

53

land-extensive latifundios limited the capacity of the nearby comunidades to expand their own pasture lands. In time this action brought these villages into conflict with the Cerro Corporation. 10 Urban Migration The development of mining and other rural industries created employment opportunities for many comuneros who were unable to support their families on their small agricultural plots. However, only certain areas of the sierra were affected (primarily the central departments of Lima, Pasco, and Junín), while most of the highlands had no alternative sources of income for the peasantry. In the 1940's and 1950's many indigenous communities began to feel the strains of overpopulation and scarce resources. In Peru, as in most of Latin America, thousands of rural families, unable to survive in the countryside, migrated to the nation's major cities in one of modern history's largest mass population movements. 11 Most of the migrants were born in the villages of the sierra's more-backward departments. As they reached adulthood, they moved from their communities to the coast in search of better educational and economic opportunities. 12 It is difficult to know how many comuneros moved to urban centers in the period of 19401960. However, the 1961 National Census revealed that 23 percent of Peru's population (2,280,000 persons) lived outside the province in which they were born and that 15.8 percent (1,568,000 people) lived outside the department of their birth. 13 Lima alone had a 10

See Chapters 5 and 6, below. There are a number of studies on peasant migration: Junta Nacional de la Vivienda, Arbol de migración; Henry F. Dobyns and Mario Vásquez (eds.), Migración e integración en el Perú. A bibliography of literature in this area can be found in William Mangin, "Latin American Squatter Settlements: A Problem and a Solution," Latin American Research Review 3 (Summer 1967): 65-98. 12 Various studies have shown that migrants tended to be in their late teens or in their twenties. See Dobyns and Vásquez (eds.), Migración; and Dirección Nacional de Estadística y Censos, Encuesta de imigración: Lima metropolitana, p. 25. Although many comuneros migrate directly to Lima or other coastal cities, some move to provincial or departmental capitals in the sierra where they either settle permanently or, in most cases, eventually move on to the coast. See Magalí Sarfatti Larson and Arlene Eisen Bergman, Social Stratification in Peru, pp. 135-140. 13 Cited in Larson and Bergman, Social Stratification, p. 136. 11

54

Social Change and the Breakdown of Traditional Society

migrant population of 781,000 (42 percent of the city's population), half of whom had come from the highlands. 14 By 1960 scarcely a village in the sierra did not have some members Uving in Lima or other coastal cities.15 After reaching the coast, most migrants settled in sprawling shantytowns outside the urban centers, where they were usually able to achieve a better standard of living than they had known in the countryside. Yet, a survey of barriada ("shantytown") dwellers in Lima indicated that only 70 percent were able to find steady employment (defined as employment lasting at least one month). 16 At any given time perhaps 35 percent of all shantytown dwellers in the nation's capital were out of work. Thus, although their annual income was nearly three times the national average, many migrants were not living at a standard that met their rising expectations. 17 Moreover, living in the city exposed many comuneros to a totally new way of life. The great wealth of Lima's upper class—manifested in their automobiles and mansions—made the barriada dweller more aware of his own poverty than he had been while living in a rural village.18 Finally, migrants had a greater opportunity to receive some elementary education (90 percent questioned in a 1957 census claimed to have attended school for some period of time), to be 14 Ibid., pp. 138 and 310, cited from Encuesta de imigración, p. 31; and Sherman Lewis, "The Politics of Urban Progress in Lima." 15 While Lima and its twin city, Callao, received the bulk of the migrants (perhaps 60 percent), the flood of people moving from the highlands affected all of Peru's large coastal cities. The nation's five largest urban centers doubled or tripled their populations in the period of 1940-1961. Percentage 1940 1961 City Increase Population Population Lima 1,436,231 176 520,528 155,953 Callao 69,406 125 135,358 Arequipa 60,725 123 100,130 171 Trujillo 36,958 95,677 203 Chiclayo 31,539 SOURCE: Dirección Nacional de Estadística y Censos, Sexto censo nacional de población, I, 13-16. "Unpublished study by José Matos Mar in 1956, cited in Bourricaud, Power and Society, pp. 116-117. "Ibid. 18 Large numbers of migrants worked as servants in the homes of Lima's upper class and, consequently, were well aware of the extent of such wealth.

Social Change and the Breakdown of Traditional Society

55

literate, to vote in national elections, and to encounter the mass media. 19 For all these reasons, they were more likely to question the established order, to participate in politics, and to have some level of class consciousness than were their fellow comuneros whom they had left behind in the sierra. For the most part, shantytown dwellers maintained contacts with their home comunidades. At least once a year, usually during fiestas, they returned to their villages to visit relatives and friends. At these times they might spread their new ideas and aspirations to their fellow comuneros. Moreover, some migrants, after spending a few years on the coast, returned permanently to their villages. Upon returning home, they could use the knowledge and sophistication they had gained in the cities to assume positions of responsibility in their comunidades. Thus, as Denton Morrison has suggested, large-scale peasant migration to urban centers can contribute significantly to rural unrest. Urban contacts (including short-term visits by peasants) may create a sense of "relative deprivation" or a "revolution of rising aspirations" among the peasantry. "The 'have' and 'have not' distinction [between developed and underdeveloped nations] is, in the aggregate, replicated in the urban and rural sectors within each developing country."20 The Expansion of Education and Literacy in the

"Comunidades"

Until recently, it was extremely difficult for any child living in a highland community to acquire even the most rudimentary education. In the mancha india over 80 percent of the village population was illiterate and spoke no Spanish. Thus, the comunero's desire to educate his children was one of the most significant factors motivating migration to the coast.21 However, in the 1950's the national government began to expand educational opportunities in the countryside. By 1961 a survey of seven hundred legally recog19 Matos, cited in Bourricaud, Power and Society. There are a number of studies on urban barriada dwellers. See Matos, "The Barriadas of Lima: An Example of Integration into Urban Life," in Urbanization in Latin America, ed. Philip Hauser. 20 Denton E. Morrison, "Relative Deprivation and Rural Discontent in Developing Areas: A Theoretical Proposal," p. 2. 21 Bourricaud, Power and Society, p. 116.

56

Social Change and the Breakdown of Traditional Society

nized indigenous communities indicated that most of them had primary schools or had children attending school in a nearby community.22 One of the most important advantages that village peasants enjoyed relative to the hacienda peons was a greater opportunity to educate their children. In many instances village elementary schools afforded only two years of primary education. Consequently, children of those communities usually received only a minimal education (though a small minority continued elsewhere). Many became functional illiterates within a few years of leaving school.23 Yet, even those few years of schooling were sufficient to earn villagers their voting cards. Therefore, the expansion of rural education was associated with a correspondingly large increase in peasant participation in the electoral process. By the 1963 presidential election (shortly before the outbreak of peasant unrest), highland comuneros had become an important voting bloc that was actively courted by Fernando Belaúnde Terry, the winning candidate. Belaúnde and the APRA candidate, Víctor Raúl Haya de la Torre, approached the villagers directly with ideas and programs that had never been discussed in the sierra before.24 Thus, the spread of education and literacy enabled village peasants to bypass the hacendado or other mestizo gamonales and enter the political system directly. An important aspect of the traditional "culture of domination" was ended. Education was also an important factor in modernizing peasant values and behavior. It is likely that peasants with more education were not only entitled to vote (the law limited suffrage to literates) but also more oriented toward active political participation than were their illiterate comrades. A number of studies of Western societies have shown that a strong positive correlation exists between the level of an individual's education and his level of political participation.25 Unfortunately, there "Unpublished survey of over seven hundred officially recognized indigenous communities conducted by Héctor Martínez and Ulrich Ritter in 1961. "They could sign their names and read well enough to secure a voting card, but they could read very little and could not write at all. 24 Particularly land reform, an issue that Belaúnde stressed in his appeal for the comunero vote. See Chapter 5, below. 25 Lester Milbraith, Political Participation; and Gabriel A. Almond and Sidney Verba, The Civic Culture.

Social Change and the Breakdown of Traditional Society

57

is little empirical evidence on the relationship between these two factors among peasants. However, in a limited study of Mexican villagers, Landsberger and Hewitt hypothesized that there was a positive relationship between a person's educational level and his tendency to join peasant organizations. 26 Gerrit Huizer maintained that rural unrest has been most prevalent in those areas of Latin America where the peasant has not been totally oppressed and has had greatest access to education. 27 Education also seems to have been an important factor in raising peasant aspirations and in increasing their sense of efficacy. A study by William Whyte indicated that the more-educated sierra villagers had a greater sense of self-esteem.28 Most peasants surveyed had a tremendous desire to educate themselves and their children and believed that such education would enable them to control their own destinies. A study of Quechua-speaking peasants in Cuzco showed that 91 percent of all villagers questioned agreed that "through education a man can become what he wishes."29 In short, there is much evidence that increased village education and literacy contributed to peasant mobilization in the 1960's. Since the Indian's dependency on the mestizo elite grew out of his inability to speak the national language, literate Spanish-speaking peasants were obviously more independent of the "culture of domination." Moreover, those few comuneros who attended secondary schools, or even universities, often became important leaders in the development of peasant federations.30 The Spread of Mass

Communications

Despite the great increases in village literacy in the 1950's, most of the peasants in the mancha india still could not read. But in recent 26 Henry A. Landsberger and Cynthia N. Hewitt, "A Pilot Study of Participation in Rural Organizations: 'Political Socialization' in Mexico," p. 8. 27 Gerrit Huizer, "Peasant Organizations and Agrarian Reform in Latin America," p. 5. 28 William F. Whyte, "The Myth of the Passive Peasant: Dynamics of Change in Rural Peru." 29 Julio Cotler, "La mecánica de la dominación interna y del cambio social en la sociedad rural," in Perú problema, by José Matos Mar et al., p. 173. 80 See Aníbal Quijano Obregón, "El movimiento campesino peruano y sus líderes," América Latina 8 (October-December 1965): 43-65; and idem, "La emergencia del grupo cholo y sus implicaciones en la sociedad peruana."

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Social Change and the Breakdown of Traditional Society

years, even the most backward Indian communities have acquired radios. 31 The spread of mass communications, particularly the radio, has been a key factor in bringing the peasantry into direct contact with the national culture. "The pace of change," said David Riesman, "has been immensely accelerated by the coming of mass media . . . which do not require the arduous steps of literacy."32 Literate peasants also depended heavily on radio for news of the outside world, as newspapers and magazines were not available in most highland communities. Although only a very small percentage of comuneros owned transistor radios, a few receivers could be listened to by every member of the community. In recent years there have been some Quechua broadcasts in the sierra, so that even monolingual Indians are no longer totally isolated from the modern world. There is evidence that exposure to the mass media not only brought the peasants new ideas (that were not controlled by the mestizo gamonales) but also gave them a higher level of aspiration. Daniel Lerner has suggested that mass communications enabled Middle Eastern peasants to envision themselves in different life situations and, consequently, to aspire to change. "The mass media . . . have been great teachers of interior manipulation. . . . Millions of people, who never left their native heath, now are learning to imagine how Ufe is organized . . . under different codes than their own."33 By showing the Peruvian villager that a better life is possible, the mass media may have also raised peasant aspirations and undermined the traditional "culture of domination." Some Questions and Hypotheses on Peasant Political

Mobilization

We noted previously that various journalists and scholars have depicted the peasant in distinctly different ways. 34 Anthropologists and early Marxists usually have contended that the peasantry has been too isolated, fatalistic, and fragmented to become an independent, mobilized political force.35 More recently, revolutionary the81

See description of Punabamba (Cuzco) in Chapter 1, above. David Riesman, "Introduction," in Daniel Lerner, The Passing of Traditional Society, p. 4. 88 Lerner, ibid., p. 54. 34 See Chapter 1, pp. 11-12, above. 36 See Karl Marx in Selected Writings in Sociology and Social Philosophy, ed. 32

Social Change and the Breakdown of Traditional Society

59

orists and social scientists—influenced by events in China, Mexico, and Vietnam—have insisted that under certain circumstances the peasantry may be mobilized and radicalized to become a major agent of revolutionary change. 36 Similar debates have raged concerning the social and political orientation of the Peruvian comunero. "Traditional . . . indian society is viewed either as a communal ideal or . . . as a lumpenproletariat dominated by 'false consciousness' inculcated by the priests."37 Yet, despite such diversity of opinion, authorities generally agree that the agents of social change that have just been discussed are important prerequisites for peasant political mobilization. The introduction of elements of socioeconomic and cultural modernity into the countryside reduces the isolation of peasant communities from each other and from the national political system.38 Consequently, peasant political mobilization and rural unrest might be expected to correlate with social development, exposure to the urban sector, and the overall level of village modernity. As Gerrit Huizer noted, "Areas where important regional or nationwide [peasant] movements started are among the less poor and less 'marginal' agricultural areas in Latin America. . . . These areas are relatively less isolated or less rigidly traditional and feudal."39 In the absence of external agents of social change, the peasant is deemed incapable of political mobilization or radicalization. 40 Yet, to date, there has been surprisingly little empirical research

Τ. Β. Bottomore and Maximillian Rubel; Phyllis Arora, "Patterns of Political Response in Indian Peasant Society," Western Political Quarterly 20 (September 1967): 645-659; Gil Carl Alroy, The Involvement of Peasants in Internal Wars; Edward C. Banfield, The Moral Basis of a Backward Society; George M. Foster, "Peasant Society and the Image of Limited Good," American Anthropologist 67 (April 1965): 293-315; and idem, "Interpersonal Relations in Peasant Societies," Human Organization 19 (Winter 1960-1961). 36 See Chapter 1, p. 12, above. 37 David Chaplin, "Peru's Postponed Revolution," World Politics 20 (April 1968): 413. 38 See Cotler, "La mecánica de la dominación." 39 Huizer, "Peasant Organizations," p. 5. 40 For an excellent critique of this position, see Whyte, "The Myth."

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Social Change and the Breakdown of Traditional Society

to test hypotheses that relate the forces of social change to peasant political behavior. 41 Few case studies have been undertaken in areas that have experienced peasant unrest, and many important questions remain unanswered. Are peasant villages with a relatively high aggregate level of literacy, urban migration, or economic differentiation more likely to participate in land seizures or to join peasant federations than are less developed communities? Is social mobilization a necessary or sufficient condition for political mobilization? Do more developed communities have more "radical" leaders than traditional villages? Are the socioeconomic correlates of political mobilization in the countryside the same as the correlates of radicalization? In the course of this study, I will examine these questions in the context of the sierra land seizures and peasant unionization of the early 1960's. Chapters 5 and 6 offer a historical and analytical account of the mobilization of villages, the seizures of hacienda lands, and the development of peasant federations. Chapters 7 through 9 investigate the relationship between social and political mobilization in forty-one sierra communities. 42 While focusing my attention on the role of external agents of change (i.e., urban migration, mass communications, and other aspects of modernity), I will also be concerned with the internal structure and behavior of the traditional peasant community. Frank and Ruth Young have noted that "the simple establishing of contact

41

In 1952, Horace Miner observed that anthropologists had long contended that the construction of roads to isolated peasant communities was an important agent of change. Yet, Miner knew of no case study at that time that had ever tested this hypothesis. More recently, James Petras and Maurice Zeitlin lamented the dearth of empirical evidence on the correlates of peasant mobilization. See Horace Miner, "The Folk-Urban Continuum," American Sociological Review 17 (October 1952): 529-537; and Petras and Zeitlin, "Agrarian Radicalism in Chile," p. 254. "It is important to keep in mind that the unit of analysis for this study of peasant mobilization is the village and not the individual peasant. A number of studies of political behavior and participation have focused on the individual. See, for example, Landsberger and Hewitt, "A Pilot Study." In this study, I will be concerned with aggregate levels of urban contact, literacy, economic development, and so forth. It may well be that the relationships between the social and political mobilization of villages are not the same as the relationships between individual social status and political participation.

Social Change and the Breakdown of Traditional Society between a peasant community and another village, or a highway, is not necessarily significant for the community. Contact is only sociologically significant if it affects individuals or the social structure of the community in some way. . . . The mere existence of a transport route . . . does not mean that a village will take advantage of it."43 The Youngs contend that the internal social structure of the peasant village prior to the introduction of agents of change will mediate those external forces and influence their effects. Consequently, this study will investigate how the level of village solidarity, the role of traditional Quechua culture, and other internal village conditions interrelate with elements of modernity that have been introduced to the community from without. Thus, by examining both the traditional and the modern correlates of village mobilization, we may hope to get a more complete picture of peasant political behavior and attitudes. 48 Ruth Young and Frank Young, "Social Integration and Change in Twentyfour Mexican Villages," Economic Development and Cultural Change 8 (July 1960): 366.

61

5. THE PEASANTS TAKE THEIR LAND

In the latter part of 1959, the villagers of Yanacancha, a small community in the department of Pasco, seized a portion of Hacienda San Juan de Paría. Local police units (called guardia) ousted the invaders and arrested nearly half of them. Shortly thereafter, the neighboring village of Rancas invaded the same latifundio. The comuneros of both towns insisted they were taking back lands that were rightfully theirs. When guardia units tried to evict the second wave of invaders, the peasants resisted. Three campesinos were killed, but the villagers of Rancas held their land. In doing so, they became the first sierra comunidad in recent Peruvian history to forceably recover territory from a major hacienda. These two invasions culminated a process of social and political change that had been at work in the central sierra for a number of years. As the indigenous communities of that region entered into the modern world, they became increasingly resentful of the hacienda power structure that controlled their lives.1 For a number of years, General Manuel Odría's dictatorship had contained the forces of change. When the civilian administration of President Manuel Prado replaced Odría's regime in 1956, the APRA party and other progressive political groups were able to resume their activities 1 See Chapters 3 and 4, above, for a discussion of the traditional sierra "culture of domination" and the forces of change in the highlands.

63

Fig. 5.1. Major Areas of Peasant Unrest

The Peasants Take Their Land

64

after eight years of repression. In the central highlands, particularly in the Aprista strongholds of Junín and Pasco (see Fig. 5.1), the National Federation of Campesinos (FENCAP) organized a number of peasant communities. Within a short time scattered signs of peasant unrest began to show. A few villages tried to occupy hacienda property, but they were easily suppressed and attracted no attention outside their own locality. By 1960, however, the department of Pasco was becoming increasingly unstable, politically and socially. Conflicts between comunidades and latifundios were widespread. Consequently, the invasions by Yanacancha and Rancas sparked a series of seizures throughout the department that continued for a period of four years. Pasco, the sierra's smallest department, had a population of 138,000 persons in 1960. Its comuneros were among the most socioeconomically advanced peasants in the highlands. Although 60 percent of the adult population spoke primarily Quechua, 90 percent could speak Spanish, as well. This contrasted with departments in the mancha india, such as Apurímac or Ayacucho, where only 30 to 35 percent of the adults spoke the national language. Similarly,

Fig. 5.2.

Department of Pasco

The Peasants Take Their Land

65

Pasco's literacy rate of 52 percent compared favorably to levels of 23 percent in Apurímac and 27 percent in Ayacucho. 2 Most of Pasco's comuneros, then, were cholos rather than Indians. Standards of living were relatively acceptable, and villagers had far greater contact with the modern urban sector than did the southern peasantry. Consequently, the controls that the white and mestizo power elite had exerted over Pasco's indigenous communities were beginning to break down. Two enterprises—mining and ranching—dominated Pasco's economy in the early 1960's. At one time the copper, lead, and zinc mines employed over eighteen thousand persons, while thousands more worked in auxiliary services and industries. Because most of the area's land was at too high an altitude to support efficient agricultural production, haciendas and comunidades turned to sheep and llama raising. Most of the ranching was tied to the commercial wool market. Consequently, the villages and latifundios were integrated into the national economy. Many of the region's largest livestock haciendas were owned by foreign or Peruvian corporations rather than by the traditional feudal hacendados who predominated in the southern sierra. Methods of production on Pasco's latifundios were relatively efficient and more capitalized. Many workers were salaried employees who were less subject to the hacendados paternalistic controls. Yet, several aspects of Pasco's rural economy created tensions between its large livestock estates and its indigenous peasant communities. Because sheep and llamas deplete large areas of pasture, these haciendas were constantly seeking new grazing lands. Moreover, the most efficient and developed latifundios in the region had increased the size of their flocks over the years, thereby compounding their need for additional pasture. Neighboring comuneros charged the haciendas with encroaching on village lands. Even when the latifundios took over pastures that did not belong to the comunidades, they still were hemming in the villages, preventing the comuneros from acquiring additional lands when they needed them. Over the years, a small number of vast haciendas gained control over most of Pasco's grazing lands. In 1960 seventeen fami2

Dirección Nacional de Estadística y Censos, Censo Nacional: 1961. The data used here were drawn from unpublished materials made available to me by the Census Bureau. Most of it has subsequently been published by the Bureau.

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lies and corporations owned 93 percent of all pasture and agricultural land in the department. 3 Foremost among these latifundistas were the Algolán Corporation (a Peruvian, family-based firm) and the Cerro de Pasco Corporation. Between them, the two companies owned over thirty haciendas with a total area of nearly one million acres. As we have seen, such concentrations of property were not uncommon throughout the Peruvian highlands (see Chapter 2). However, in Pasco the effects of latifundism on the indigenous communities were more pronounced. While most of the agricultural haciendas in the mancha india supported fairly substantial numbers of colonos, Pasco's sheep ranches needed only a small work force. Therefore, there was less opportunity for alternative employment on a hacienda in Pasco than there was in the South. Villagers who needed more land could not rent it from a paternalistic hacendado. Moreover, while southern haciendas needed new lands only occasionally, Pasco's ranches expanded at a rapid rate and were, therefore, constantly competing with the comunidades for territory. Finally, the corporate estate owners in the department lacked a tradition of paternalism that could have mitigated their conflicts with the peasantry. In the 1950's a series of events in the copper and zinc industries reinforced rural tensions in the area. The Cerro de Pasco Corporation—which hired 90 percent of the department's miners—introduced labor-saving procedures that enabled the company to gradually reduce the number of miners it employed from thirteen thousand to four thousand. 4 Because of the high rate of turnover in the mines, there was no need to lay off men. The size of the labor force was reduced by merely not replacing workers who left mining to return to their villages. Because of this practice, the immediate effects of mechanization were not apparent. However, over the years, reduced employment opportunities with the Cerro Corporation depressed the economies of nearby communities. Previously, villagers who could not support themselves on the land had sought work in the mines. This served as an important pressure valve that mitigated 3

Mario Malpica, Biografía de la revolución, p . 438. Interviews with Alfredo Paredes, public-relations director of the Cerro de Pasco Corporation offices in Cerro, June 6, 1969, and former Congressional Deputy Carlos Malpica, June 17, 1969. 4

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conflicts between haciendas and comunidades over pasture lands. Now an alternative source of employment was no longer available. During that period the Cerro Corporation did expand its refining facilities at La Oroya. To some extent this compensated for the labor reductions in mining. However, the overall labor needs of the metal industry did not equal the growing demand for jobs from land-poor comuneros. From 1940 to 1960 the department of Pasco's population increased by 40 percent. During that same period the total labor force of Cerro's mines and La Oroya's refineries rose by only 3 to 4 percent (with all of this limited expansion coming in the refineries). 5 Villagers who sought work in Cerro de Pasco's auxiliary services and industries were also adversely affected. The depression of the mining industry was reflected in the unusually slow rate of growth in Cerro's population. During the 1940's and 1950's most of the sierra's major cities were flooded with migrants from the comunidades. The populations of Cuzco, Huancayo, and La Oroya—three major highland cities—rose by 80 to 140 percent (see Table 5.1); Cerro de Pasco's population rose by only 19 percent during the same period—a rate of less than 1 percent per year. TABLE 5.1 Major Cities of the Sierra: Population Growth City Cerro de Pasco Cuzco Huancayo La Oroya

1940 Population 17,882 40,657 26,729 13,508

1961 Population 21,363 79,857 64,153 24,724

Increase

(%) 19 96 140 83

SOURCE: Dirección Nacional de Estadística y Censos, Censo Nacional: 1961, I, 13-16.

Coincidentally, during this same period a developed that further exacerbated tensions copper deposits in Pasco were located near an extended period of time, strip mining city had weakened the ground beneath the 5

second, unrelated, issue in the area. Most of the the city of Cerro. Over in the outskirts of the homes of many miners

Ministerio de Hacienda, Informe 1958-1962, Boletín no. 6, p. 47; and M. Malpica, Biografía, p. 436.

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and made certain neighborhoods unsafe. In response to this problem, the Cerro Corporation constructed new housing elsewhere. Since large inaccessible copper deposits still lay under most of Cerro de Pasco, the corporation felt that this might be an opportune moment to construct a new city outside the old one and move the city's population to it. However, the miners strongly opposed the plan, feeling that it would force them to travel great distances to and from work. The issue aroused a large degree of popular resentment against the company and brought increased support for leftist parties in Cerro. 6 These tensions were probably carried back to the surrounding villages from which most of the miners came. In 1958 there was a violent strike in the Cerro Corporation mines. A decline in the United States copper quota had forced the corporation to reduce operations and to dismiss workers at an accelerated pace. Protest rallies concerning the layoffs and the proposed new city led to clashes with police in which several miners were shot. Again, this increased the bitterness of nearby communities against the Cerro Corporation. The following year, strikes and protests broke out anew. During the course of these demonstrations, Genaro Ledesma Izquieta, a local schoolteacher recently arrived from the coast, became a leading spokesman for the miners. Ledesma tied the miners' grievances to the demands of nearby communities for Cerro Corporation lands. To this end, he led a delegation of miners and comuneros to Lima, seeking the distribution of the corporation's haciendas to the surrounding villages. The delegates met with various members of President Manuel Prado's cabinet, but they did not elicit any government response. Shortly thereafter the community of Yanacancha invaded Hacienda San Juan de Paría. In 1960 the mayor of Cerro de Pasco resigned from office. Both the mine-workers' union and the local APRA party proposed that Genaro Ledesma be named to the post. Since President Prado had been elected with APRA support, he acceded to that demand. At the time, Ledesma was officially an Aprista (i.e., a member of the reformist APRA party). However, his sympathies lay more with APRA Rebelde, a dissident group of former Apristas who supported the principles of the Cuban revolution. As time passed, he 6

Interview with Dr. Genaro Ledesma Izquieta, former congressional deputy and former mayor of Cerro de Pasco, June 23, 1969.

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openly identified with a revolutionary position. Several months after Ledesma's appointment as mayor of Cerro, the village of Rancas invaded Cerro Corporation lands. Ledesma supported the invading villagers and withdrew local police from the hacienda after some initial bloodshed. This intervention enabled Rancas to keep the invaded property. In the succeeding months Ledesma became increasingly involved in Pasco's growing rural unrest. He helped found the Pasco Federation of Communities and served as its legal advisor. Such leadership was very important in organizing and channeling incipient peasant mobilization in the area. The growth of the village federation was accompanied by a sharp increase in land invasions. There is no evidence that Ledesma directly encouraged these seizures. However, his close ties to the communities and his control over local police certainly created a more favorable atmosphere for them. Consequently, four months after the Raneas invasion, President Prado removed Ledesma from office. Shortly thereafter he was jailed as a "rural agitator." 7 By this time, however, unrest was too widespread to be stilled by the arrest of a single individual. In the remaining years of the Prado regime, 1960-1962, invasions continued to take place throughout the department. Ninacaca, Yarusyacán, Villa de Pasco, Vicco, Quilacocha, Yarajhuanca, and other communities seized lands they felt were theirs. Some of the villages were repulsed by police on their first venture but returned later. Other comunidades engaged in a series of successful invasions. In some instances several villages jointly seized one or more latifundios. Initially, most seizures took place in the vicinity of Cerro de Pasco. However, after several months the unrest spread to the adjoining province of Daniel Carrión. Similarly, early invasions were aimed primarily at estates owned by the Cerro Corporation, while later seizures affected virtually all the major haciendas in the department. The Pasco seizures reached a bloody climax in 1962 when the village of Yanahuanca in Daniel Carrión invaded Hacienda Pocayán. In the ensuing battle with local guardia, ten to fifteen comuneros were killed, and nearly fifty were wounded. That massacre aroused a wave of indignation throughout Peru. In Cerro de Pasco, miners, urban workers, and students held demonstrations to protest 7

Ibid.

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the indiscriminate use of violence. Similar protests were held in other parts of the country. In response to these pressures, President Prado released 150 villagers who had been jailed during the invasion. Yet, at that time the comuneros of Yanahuanca did not keep the land they had seized. One year later they reinvaded Hacienda Pocayán and successfully took fourteen thousand hectares. That seizure was the largest of its kind in the sierra. The mobilization of Pasco's peasantry from 1959 to 1962 preceded rural unrest in other areas of the highlands by several years. However, during that same period another peasant movement emerged in a remote southern valley on the edge of Cuzco's jungle region— the valley of La Convención. Unrest in these two areas was totally unconnected. However, both movements served as benchmarks for the beginning of mass peasant mobilization in Peru. Peasant Unrest in La Convención:

1958-1962

The valley of La Convención is located ninety miles northwest of the city of Cuzco (see Fig. 5.4), amid the subtropical forests of the Andes' eastern slope. Known as the montaña, the region separates the towering sierra from the low-lying Peruvian jungle. 8 Transportation routes to the department capital were very difiBcult until quite recently, and, as late as 1940, one-third of the valley's population was beyond the government's administrative control. At the time of the region's first peasant mobilization—the early 1950's— there were no direct rail or road links to the city of Cuzco. 9 Because La Convención had not been a part of the Incan empire, it had neither ayllus nor indigenous communities. Instead, it was sparsely populated by tribal Indians (Machiguenga) who had fled into the jungle when white settlers arrived in the nineteenth century. In time, the valley's land was divided into a small number of large latifundios. In the early 1950's most property was still owned by twenty-five families. The valley's sixty-one large estates aver8 The term montaña is used in Peru to describe a region of high jungle that is located at an altitude of two to four thousand feet above sea level. Because it borders on the heavily populated sierra, the montaña has served as a frontier—expansion area for peasants and hacendados seeking new lands. 9 Eric J. Hobsbawm, "Problèmes agraires à La Convención (Pérou)," in Les problèmes agraires des Amériques Latines.

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aged over 4,300 hectares on which cocoa, sugar, coffee, and tea were cultivated. 10 Because most of La Conventión's indigenous population had fled, the early hacendados who had colonized the region were forced to recruit their peons from the neighboring highlands of Cuzco, Apurímac, and Ayacucho. In the 1930's the valley's population was decimated by a malaria epidemic, and the landlords again turned to the sierra's indigenous communities for new peons. Highland villagers were offered a plot of land in La Convención on the condition that they render ten to twenty days of free labor per month to the hacendado. The plots that the comuneros were offered in the valley were far larger than those they had owned in their overcrowded villages.11 Consequently, although they were exchanging their position as smallholders for hacienda peonage, many comuneros migrated down into the montaña. Between 1940 and 1960 thousands of villagers moved onto La Convención's haciendas, raising the valley's population from 28,000 to 62,000. Two-thirds of the peasants living in the region during the late 1950's had been born outside the province. 12 The tenant's feudal obligations to his patrón were generally similar to arrangements prevailing in the sierra. Peasants were economically and politically dependent on the hacendados. Moreover, the length of the colono's tenancy and the rules of his relationship with the hacendado were subject to the whims of the patrón. However, the La Convención tenants differed from sierra peons in a number of respects. Most of the valley's colonos had voluntarily migrated from sierra communities, relinquishing their roles as independent smallholders. Consequently, they did not share the feudal mentality of highland serfs who had been born tied to their hacienda's land. Since they had frequently been among the most socially advanced members of their comunidad prior to their departure for the montaña, their educational level tended to be much higher than that of the sierra colonos. Finally, members of the valley's migrant popu10 Wesley W. Craig, Jr., From Hacienda to Community, pp. 13-17; and Mario Malpica, Biografía, pp. 442-443. "Wesley W. Craig, Jr., "The Peasant Movement of La Convención, Peru," p. 10. 12 Ibid.; see also, Padre Iván Pardo, "Migración, tenencia de la tierra y movimientos campesinos en la provincia de La Convención," pp. 9-10.

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lation were motivated by a frontier mentality and a high level of expectations when they left home. In La Convención they found their ambitions stymied by the feudal labor obligations that they owed their patrones.13 In short, although they were hacienda colonos, the tenant farmers in La Convención had an outlook on life closer to that of the Pasco comuneros than that of the highland peons. In the late 1940's many of the valley's tenants supplemented their subsistence farming with commercial cultivation of coffee. Unlike sierra colonos, they were able to sell their crop directly to merchants who came to the valley, and they received a handsome price for it. From 1945 to 1954 the price of coffee rose from 1.2 soles per kilo to 14.8 soles, an increase of 1,200 percent. Consequently, more peasants moved into this economically opportune area, increasing the valleys output from 583,000 kilos a year to 1,308,000.14 In time the La Convención hacendados attempted to claim a portion of the lucrative coffee market. Some landlords forced their tenants to sell them coffee at a price well below market value. Others tried to evict colonos who had considerably improved the value of their plots during their tenancy. Obviously, the peasants strongly resented the attempts being made by the landlords to terminate their commercial contacts with the outside world and to reduce their standard of living to its earlier state. 15 The opportunities for economic advancement in coffee cultivation also made the tenants more resentful of the labor obligations they owed their patrones. Because they were forced to work the hacendado's personal lands, they could not raise as much coffee on their own plots. To free themselves of this chore, the colonos often sublet a portion of their plot to newly arrived sierra migrants. These subtenants (called allegados) then assumed the colonos9 full labor obligation to the hacendado. Yet, neither tenants nor subtenants found this solution satisfactory. The allegados were paying a high cost in labor for a small plot of land. The colonos, in turn, were 18

See Craig, From Hacienda to Community; Hobsbawm, "Problèmes"; and Pardo, "Migración." 14 Craig, From Hacienda to Community, p. 31. 16 There is reason to believe that peasants are most readily radicalized when they are deprived of privileges or opportunities that they had previously enjoyed.

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needlessly losing a portion of their profitable coffee plots. Consequently, conflicts of interest between peasants and landlords continued to exist. In 1952 colonos in several of La Convención's haciendas organized peasant unions (or sindicatos). This movement did not develop further until 1958, when eight hacienda sindicatos joined together to form the Provincial Peasant Federation of La Convención and Lares. This new federation included both colonos and allegados. Although the original impetus for mobilization came from within the valley's peasantry, the campesinos did receive help from radical lawyers in the city of Cuzco. Ties were also established with the Cuzco Labor Federation ( F T C ) , the department capital's leading workers' group. The FTC furnished advisors who helped the peasants increase union membership and formulate their demands. Communist leadership from the urban labor union also gave the peasant movement an ideological orientation. By 1960, 130 sindicatos belonged to the Provincial Peasant Federation, and it encompassed nearly all of the valley's 11,000 campesinos. Initially, the tenants presented their patrones with a series of moderate demands. They asked that their labor obligations to the landlords be reduced but did not suggest that they be eliminated. When the Provincial Federation was organized in 1958 those demands were escalated somewhat. The tenants then wished to eliminate the labor obligations entirely so that they could devote all their time to their own coffee plots. Henceforth, rent would be paid in cash. Second, the Federation demanded that tenants be permitted to sell their coffee directly to the commercial market without interference from the hacendados. Finally, the colonos asked for a longterm lease (six to ten years) on their plots, which would afford them a greater amount of security. The year of Pasco's first successful land invasions, 1960, was a turning point in the development of the La Convención peasant movement. In the early part of that year Federation leaders called a valley-wide strike in which tenants ceased paying rent on their plots. Shortly thereafter, a young man arrived in the valley who was to profoundly influence subsequent peasant mobilization. He was Hugo Blanco, a Cuzco agronomist active in the Trotskyist movement. Blanco had first learned of the peasant unrest in La Convención through his father-in-law, a lawyer from the department capital

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who had helped the Peasant Federation in its early days. After arriving in the valley, Blanco rented a small plot of land as a hacienda allegado. He hoped to develop the unrest in La Convención into a more ideological and militant movement that would eventually serve as a model for rural revolt in the highlands. Blanco was aware of the peasants' nonideological orientations and carefully addressed himself to their immediate needs. His fluency in Quechua and his local background helped him in gaining the campesinos' trust. In a short period of time, he was elected to the presidency of the sindicato on his own hacienda and became a leading spokesman for the peasants of the entire valley. During the next two years he convinced most of the area's tenants, particularly the oppressed allegados, to radicalize their demands in two respects: First, he urged them to end all payments of rent permanently, rather than merely asking for a change in the nature of that rent—that is to say, he suggested that the tenants assume de facto ownership of their plots. Second, he proposed that they protect these plots with armed defense militias. Blanco summarized these proposals in the slogan Tierra o Muerte, "Land or Death." In 1962 the Federation adopted the first part of this strategy (though it is not certain that Blanco influenced their decision). A new strike was instituted in which tenants and allegados refused to work the hacendados' lands or pay any rent on their plots. Within a year virtually every campesino in the valley had joined the strike and thereby assumed de facto possession of their plots. The landlords never again regained control over those lands. Some of the more-radical peasants formed the defense units that Blanco had proposed. Eventually, armed peasants not only defended their own plots, but also seized the landlords' lands. In late 1962 Blanco claimed that 40 of the 380 haciendas in the region had been totally seized.16 Several months earlier, in May, Blanco had been elected "Clandestine interview in Expreso (Lima), October 28, 1962, p. 3. Interestingly, Wesley Craig's studies of La Convención—the most authoritative works on that movement—make no mention of these seizures. However, two Peruvian scholars—Aníbal Quijano and Roberto MacLeán—discuss them in their studies. See Aníbal Quijano Obregón, "El movimiento campesino peruano y sus líderes," América Latina 8 (October-December 1965): 43-65; and Roberto MacLeán y Estenos, La reforma agraria en el Perú, pp. 114-115. Craig and others erroneously refer to Blanco as an advocate of guerrilla tactics and an adherent of Fidel Castro. Both these assertions are incorrect. In his

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organizing secretary of the Federation. Shortly thereafter, a warrant was issued for his arrest, and he was forced to flee into the jungle. However, the tenant strike continued, and the Peasant Federation maintained its strength. The peasants of La Convención never gave up the land they had seized. Much has been written about Hugo Blanco's failure to develop the La Convención peasant insurrection into a national revolutionary movement. Peruvian leftists have heatedly debated the merits of his strategy and ideology. Blanco himself seems to have certain doubts as to what he should have done and where he had failed.17 Some North American authors have belittled his role in the La Convención movement. They argue that the mobilization had reached its peak before he arrived and that his radical strategy was rejected by the majority of sindicato leaders, who "wanted to sell coffee, not revolution."18 This viewpoint overlooks several important ways that Blanco and the La Convención movement influenced the course of Peruvian peasant mobilization. Blanco's struggle was the first significant attempt by members of the Peruvian left to organize the peasantry into a revolutionary force. Mariátegui and other Marxist intellectuals had insisted upon the communist potential of the Quechua ayllu. In its early, more revolutionary, stages APRA had also championed the cause of the peasants. However, neither APRA nor the communists ever went beyond the point of rhetoric; both saw greater political potential in writings and in conversations with me, Blanco expressed his strong opposition to the guerrilla strategies of Castro, Ché Guevara, and Regis Debray. Although he admired and supported the Cuban revolutionaries, he did not feel that their tactics were appropriate for Peru. Blanco's armed peasant militias, which seized lands that they felt should be theirs, were not guerrillas. Guerrillas are mobile units of men that have no ties to the land. Blanco did not believe that such groups could win peasant support. Consequently, he did not work with Luis de la Puente, an urban radical who visited La Convención in 1962 to plan guerrilla activities there. De la Puente returned to the valley after Blanco was captured by the military. He was not familiar with the area and did not speak Quechua. Consequently, he never had the peasant support that Blanco enjoyed. In 1965, de la Puente was killed in action. 17 Interview with Blanco in El Frontón Penitentiary, February 2, 1969. Although Blanco admitted to having miscalculated the political attitudes of La Conventión's peasants, in retrospect he felt that his strategy had been essentially correct. 18 Craig, From Hacienda to Community, p. 43.

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the urban working class. Blanco's efforts came at a time when the Cuban revolution had inspired young Peruvian radicals to look to the countryside. His charismatic personality moved many students in the Andean cities of Cuzco, Ayacucho, and Huancayo to work with incipient peasant movements. Often these students had been born in the comunidades they now sought to organize. Blanco's experience convinced them that land seizures might serve as a focus for the radicalization of highland comuneros. Thus, while Blanco did not operate in the sierra itself, he inspired other radicals who did.19 Finally, his activities had an unintended effect on the reaction of Peru's political system to peasant mobilization. Henceforth, conservative spokesmen, such as Lima's La Prensa, could associate the peasantry's legitimate desire for land with the threat of revolutionary insurrection. The National Government's Response to Peasant Unrest: 1959-1962 Blanco's flight from La Convención ended the more-volatile phase of rural unrest in that region. Coupled with the concurrent repression of village mobilization in Pasco, it terminated the first phase of the peasant land movement. The unrest in Pasco and La Convención had extended through two national administrations—the civilian government of President Manuel Prado and the military junta that governed the country from 1962 to 1963. At this point we might shift our attention from the Peruvian countryside to the national capital to evaluate the responses of these two administrations to peasant political mobilization. Manuel Prado was a member of one of Peru's most socially prominent families. As president he generally pursued policies that supported the political and economic status quo. 20 His administration's 19

I am not necessarily suggesting that the land seizures actually radicalized the peasants who were involved or that Blanco's strategy was a promising means of promoting revolution. I will deal with the relationship between the invasions and peasant radicalization in Chapters 7-9, below. However, at this point I am merely noting that a significant number of young radical activists believed that the land-seizure movement was worth working with. This belief, whatever its validity, influenced the course of peasant mobilization in the Andes. 20 Prado's candidacy had been supported in 1956 by the APRA party. In return, the president ended General Odría's ban on APRA activities and permitted the party and its auxiliary organizations to function freely. Although APRA had

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policies toward the campesino movement can best be evaluated by examining two areas of decision making. First, what was the immediate response of his administration to the rural disorders? That is to say, what was done to restore law and order in the countryside? Second, what long-term policies—if any—were formulated to alleviate the causes of peasant unrest in the sierra? Were any plans developed for agrarian reform? In the initial stages of the Pasco unrest, local police tried to evict invading peasants immediately after the seizures. Often this led to mass arrests and bloodshed. As the number and magnitude of the invasions increased, it became difficult to control them. Many of the communities involved were fairly inaccessible, and the guardias manpower was limited. Consequently, at the close of 1960, many villages still held the land they had seized. During the following year, however, President Prado initiated a program entitled operación desalojado ("operation eviction")—a large coordinated military operation aimed at clearing peasants from haciendas in Pasco that had been invaded in November and December of 1960. On March 3, 1961, several villagers were killed during the eviction of comuneros from Haciendas Uchumarca, Pocayán, and Chinche. The following day four thousand peasants were removed from occupied haciendas at the cost of eight more lives. In all, operación desalojado resulted in fifteen deaths.21 APRA leaders and spokesmen for the Aprista Peruvian Labor Federation (CTP) protested the peasant massacres. At that time both the city of Cerro de Pasco and the surrounding villages were APRA strongholds. However, La Prensa—edited by Prado's prime minister, Pedro Beltrán—set the tone of the administration's response by charging that "red subversives were involved in the invasions."22 Several months later Genaro Ledesma, the propeasant mayor of Cerro, was arrested. Large-scale evictions of invading villagers were resumed in November and December, 1961. Often the very haciendas that had been cleared by the guardia earlier in the year were reinvaded and had to be cleared anew. Once again these evictions led to violence once been Peru's leading reformist party, it had become fairly stagnant over the years. Consequently, its endorsement of Prado did not commit him to a progressive program. 21 La Prensa (Lima), March 4, 1961, p. 1, and March 5, 1961, p. 1. 22 MacLeán, La reforma agraria, p. 112.

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and bloodshed. A planned meeting of the Movement of Central Communities (a group that Ledesma helped found) was prohibited by the department prefect. The government's repression of the invasions and of various community federations was strongly supported by Lima's leading newspapers. La Prensa repeated its charges of communist subversion in the highlands and published similar claims by the Association of Wool Raisers, a group representing Pasco's largest ranch owners. 23 As I have noted previously, Hugo Blanco's concurrent activities in La Convención reinforced the rightists' fear of a nationwide revolutionary plot. Lima's second major daily, El Comercio, contended that APRA agitators were responsible for the Pasco unrest. 24 Events in the central highlands reached a climax in March, 1962. Police units fought a pitched battle with a virtual army of 3,500 peasants from several villages. The comuneros were armed only with sticks, rocks, and farm tools, but some 1,500 of them were on horseback. Eight peasants were killed and twenty-five wounded in the struggle. 25 This was the largest encounter between police and peasants since the start of the Pasco invasions and one of the most dramatic in recent Peruvian history. As a result of the massacre, a solidarity strike of miners and railroad workers was called in Cerro de Pasco. Many of the striking miners came from villages involved in the battle. Peasants and miners constructed barricades in the streets of Cerro and virtually seized the city. The police ultimately regained control and declared martial law. Meetings of more than four persons were banned. These events and the subsequent massacre at Yanahuanca temporarily brought the seizures in Pasco to a halt. In La Convención police repressions of this sort would have been very difficult to carry out. To begin with, Blanco's armed defense units offered the peasants a certain degree of protection. Furthermore, access to the valley was so limited that it would have been quite difficult to send in large police or military units. The Prado administration certainly could have crushed the movement in La Convención had it wished to do so. However, such a policy was not 23

La Prensa, December 9, 1961, p. 1, and December 11, 1961, p. 1. El Comercio (Lima), December 11, 1961, p. 1. 25 MacLeán, La reforma agraria, p. 113; La Prensa cites a lower number of dead, March 4, 1962, p. 1. 24

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worth the costs. Wesley Craig notes that the valley's hacendados were generally old men with little political influence in Lima.26 Unlike the powerful corporations that owned the latifundios of Pasco, they were not able to demand heavy government protection. Finally, although the La Convención peasantry was more radical than the Pasco comuneros, the government was less concerned about the threat that the valley's unrest might pose to the status quo. As long as the movement remained confined to an isolated jungle area, it did not seem likely to spread to other parts of the country. Quite the opposite was true of the centrally located Pasco unrest. To the extent that the Prado regime did become involved in La Convención, its policies were predictably unsympathetic to the peasants. In 1960, after the start of the tenants' strike, the Ministry of Labor and Indigenous Affairs sent an investigator to the valley. He returned to Lima with a report, unexpectedly favorable to the peasants' demands, that suggested the abolition of the feudal work obligations. The report and its recommendations were quickly shelved.27 The following April, Prado did issue a presidential decree officially prohibiting those obligations. However, the order required the tenants to pay cash rents instead. Since the peasants had already stopped paying any form of rent and had, in effect, taken over their plots, the Prado decree aided the landlords, not the tenants. Naturally, the leaders of the striking peasant federation rejected the terms of the decree. In short, the Prado government's short-term policy on peasant mobilization ranged from lack of sympathy toward the tenants in La Convención to repression of the comuneros in Pasco. The administration's policies regarding the more-basic long-range issue of land reform followed much the same lines. After taking office in 1956 (three years before the first Pasco invasions), President Prado appointed a commission to study the question of agrarian reform. That commission was not set up in response to demands generated by the peasantry. National economic conditions were more important in motivating Prado than were rural social and political considerations. Famines in Arequipa, Ayacucho, and Puno during the preceding year had forced Peru to import large quantities of food. This 26

Craig, From Hacienda to Community, pp. 48-49. Virgilio Landázurri, "Informe sobre el problema de los arrendires del Valle de la Convención." 27

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highlighted a long-term drain on the nation's balance of payments caused by the import of millions of dollars' worth of food each year. Therefore, many government officials saw the need for an agrarian reform that would increase agricultural productivity. A second factor militating for agrarian reform was the extremely high rate of rural migration to the cities. The large number of unemployed migrants living in the shantytowns of Lima and other coastal cities could eventually pose a far greater threat to the status quo than the sierra peasants did. An agrarian-reform law might stem the tide of migration. The question remained, however, "what form would agrarian reform take?" Admittedly, the very decision to set up a top government commission on this issue was a landmark in Peruvian politics. It ended a long-standing taboo against any discussion of land redistribution among legitimate (i.e., nonradical) political leaders. 28 However, the composition of the body appointed by the president indicated that no reforms that threatened the existing sierra power structure would be proposed. The commission's chairman (and most powerful member) was Prime Minister Pedro Beltrán. The prime minister was a large landowner and the editor of La Prensa, a paper well known for its support of the rural oligarchy and its hostility toward any peasant mobilization. Most of the other commission members shared Beltrán's political ideology. For four years nothing was heard from the commission. A reform law was not proposed until 1960. It is impossible to know what influence peasant unrest might have had in moving the commission to action; however, the report was issued during the spread of land seizures in Pasco and La Convención. The bill proposed by the group was noteworthy in that it admitted that agrarian reform might require the expropriation of some Andean haciendas. No Peruvian government had ever admitted this before. Yet, in practice this admission meant nothing. The bill called for such generous indemnifications for landlords that the state would be financially unable to purchase any significant amount of latifundio land. François Bourricaud noted that, if the state were to spend 3 percent of the national budget on agrarian reform—a highly unlikely figure—it would only be able to purchase 300,000 hectares of sierra pasture

28

See François Bourricaud, "La reforma agraria en el Perú" Oiga (Lima), January 20, 1967, pp. 32-34, and January 27, 1967, pp. 32-35.

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29

land a year. Limited as the proposal was, Beltrán's La Prensa still felt that the bill was too radical. The paper admitted that the Pasco invasions were caused by land shortages in the comunidades. However, it suggested that the problem would be better solved by increasing the smallholders' productivity than by land redistribution. 30 In any event, the Beltrán report was largely symbolic; it was never submitted to Congress for consideration. The Military Government:

1962-1963

On June 10, 1962, national elections that were held to choose a successor to retiring President Prado failed to give a majority to any of the three major candidates. The decision passed to the Congress, where the military feared that its traditional enemy, APRA leader Víctor Raúl Haya de la Torre, might be chosen to head a coalition government. On July 18 the military prevented such an arrangement by annulling the election and ousting outgoing President Prado in a coup d'état. A military junta remained in power for one year until new elections were held. What was the policy of the military government toward the peasant land movement? Here again, I will examine the regime's position in the spheres of law and order and agrarian reform. When the military took power, the village unrest in Pasco had already been substantially suppressed. However, as we have seen, little had been done by the Prado regime to control the peasant mobilization in La Convención. The government had not supported the demands of the valley's tenants, but neither had it repressed the movement. After seizing power, the military assumed a more-interventionist policy toward Hugo Blanco and his armed defense units. Blanco's increasing influence in the Peasant Federation and in the Departmental Federation of Cuzco convinced the military that the La Convención mobilization was a greater threat to the established order than had previously been appreciated. The election of Blanco as organizational secretary of the Federation two months prior to the coup seemed to indicate that the peasants were adopting a more-radical political position. Hence, the junta dispatched a sizeable number of troops to the area to arrest Blanco and charge him with the murder of two policemen allegedly killed by his defense 29

Ibid. La Prensa, December 11, 1961, p. 1.

30

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units. In late 1962 he was captured after several months of flight. He was imprisoned in the distant city of Arequipa and held there without trial for the remainder of the junta's term in office. The pursuit and capture of Blanco was part of a more-general effort by the military to crush any potential revolutionary insurrection in La Convención. Additional guardia assault troops were sent to the area. On December 27, 1962, police fired on a peasant demonstration in the town of Chaullay, killing somewhere between ten and forty persons (depending on whose account of the massacre one accepts). 31 On January 5 of the following year, the departmental authorities of Cuzco suspended the individual constitutional guarantees of all persons in the region. Hundreds of peasants in the valley were arrested. The Chaullay massacre and the mass arrests inhibited any additional land seizures in the valley. In Pasco and Junín the military imprisoned a large number of peasant leaders along with radical union officials from the mines and refineries. Many of these men were members of the Fidelista-oriented APRA Rebelde. Initially, then, the junta adopted a position toward the rural unrest that was as repressive as President Prado's had been. However, unlike Prado, the military realized that police repression alone would be insufficient to control a militantly mobilized rural group like the La Convención tenants. Three months after assuming power, the junta announced plans for agrarian reform in Cuzco and other parts of the country. The prefect of Cuzco announced that his department would be the first region to be affected by the land reform.32 In February, 1963 (shortly after Blanco's capture), the government issued Decree No. 14444, an agrarian-reform program for La Convención and Lares. It instructed the Institute of Agrarian Reform and Colonization (IRAC) to begin the expropriation of haciendas in the valley, particularly "oversized" and "underutilized" estates. At about the same time, sindicato leaders from thirty-nine of the struck haciendas met with the provincial subprefect and signed a pact in which they agreed to cease any future invasions. In return, they were promised an eight-hour day and coverage by the national minimum-wage law. As time passed, virtually nothing was done to implement the 31

M. Malpica, Biografía, p. 473. Expreso (Lima), December 13, 1962, p. 1.

32

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terms of the progressive agrarian-reform decree. During the remainder of the junta's term in office, one hacienda was expropriated by IRAC. Fifteen hundred hectares of Hacienda El Potrero were divided among 260 families. Yet the promise of reform, coupled with the military's earlier police repression, effectively stopped any additional invasions. A number of peasant units voluntarily left hacienda lands they had seized. By the end of 1963 less-radical leadership assumed control of most of the Peasant Federation of La Convención.33 When the military left office in 1963, tranquility had been restored to La Convención as well as Pasco. The junta's two-pronged approach of reform and repression had its desired effect. Yet, the military had not parted substantially with Prado's policy of denying the basic legitimacy of the seizures and of the peasantry's implicit and explicit demands. The 1963 Elections In June, 1963, national elections aimed at selecting a civilian president and Congress were held once again. The leading candidates for the presidency were the same men who had run in the inconclusive 1962 election: a former dictator, General Manuel Odría; an APRA leader, Víctor Raúl Haya de la Torre; and a progressive architect with limited political experience, Fernando Belaúnde Terry. The small, but influential, Christian Democratic party, which had contested the 1962 election, withdrew its own candidate this time and supported Belaúnde. This development was significant because the Christian Democrats were very committed to agrarian reform in the sierra. As a condition for their support, Belaúnde promised them control of the Agriculture Ministry and the Agrarian Reform Agency in his administration. Belaúnde's vice-presidential running mate, Edgardo Seoane, was also an outspoken advocate of far-reaching change in the countryside. Under these circumstances, agrarian reform became a key part of Belaúnde's platform and a central issue in the campaign. By 1963, agrarian reform was clearly "an idea whose time had come." The Cuban revolution had convinced much of Peru's bour33 It must be remembered that, although the government was extremely slow in applying the agrarian-reform law to the valley, the tenants did remain in de facto control of their plots while they waited for state action. Thus, their goals were basically achieved.

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geoisie that some land redistribution might be necessary to avoid rural insurrection. John Kennedy's Alliance for Progress indicated that the United States had reached the same conclusion. The Peruvian church and the military, traditional allies of the landed aristocracy, were now both calling for change. Belaúnde's strongly reformist position in this area put pressure on his opponents. In order to maintain APRA's image as Peru's most-progressive party, Haya de la Torre was forced to commit himself more strongly to agrarian reform. Even rightist candidate Manuel Odría—whose party depended heavily on the backing of the nation's hacendados— spoke vaguely of the need for change. For the first time in Peruvian political history, everyone agreed that something had to be done. 34 In short, the 1963 election was a turning point in the nation's political development. The entire party spectrum shifted to the left on the key issue of rural reform. This significant shift was motivated in great part by a common realization that the countryside was socially and politically unstable. The recent invasions in Pasco and La Convención made the rural situation appear critical. However, Belaúnde also recognized that a reformist program could earn his candidacy political dividends. By the time of the 1963 election, a fairly substantial number of village smallholders were literate enough to obtain voting cards. The peasantry, which had always been an insignificant actor in national politics, now had developed into an important voting bloc. Belaúnde realized that the rural power structure of the large landowners and political bosses could no longer control the comunero vote. Belaúnde had a particular reason for appealing to the peasantry. Unlike his two opponents, he lacked an established base of political support. APRA was the only party in Peru with a strong grass-roots organization. Haya de la Torre could depend on a huge vote from the northern coast and the central highlands, where working-class devotion to APRA was an article of political faith. Odría was backed by most of the nation's economic elite. Furthermore, during his eight years as president (1948-1956) he had used public-works programs to amass a following among Lima's lower class.35 Belaúnde 34

Bourricaud, "La reforma agraria." The former dictator had permitted (or even encouraged) migrant squatters to seize unoccupied public lands on the outskirts of Lima for use as shantytowns. His public-works projects also provided badly needed jobs for their residents. 35

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and his Popular Action party were supported by professionals, students, intellectuals, and other progressive elements of the middle class. However, in the 1962 election these sectors had not provided him with nearly enough votes to secure victory. Therefore, in 1963 Belaúnde oriented his campaign toward the peasantry, something no Peruvian presidential candidate had ever done before. "Papa Belaúnde," as he became known to the campesinos, visited hundreds of comunidades throughout the highlands in a relentless search for rural votes. He promised the villagers agrarian reform, schools, and community-development assistance. Belaúnde's campaign was the first personal contact that most of these villagers had ever had with a presidential candidate. Belaúnde's electoral strategy was quite successful. Haya de la Torre achieved his expected majorities in the North, and Odría captured a majority of Lima's huge voting bloc. Belaúnde, however, held his own in Lima and the former APRA stronghold of Junín while sweeping to victory in the departments of the mancha india. Southern departments, such as Cuzco, Puno, and Arequipa, gave the Popular Action party its greatest vote. As Table 5.2 indicates, TABLE 5.2 1963 Election Returns in Selected Departments

The Aprista North Amazonas Cajamarca La Libertad Lambayeque Lima The South Arequipa Cuzco Puno Peru

Belaúnde

Haya de la Torre and Odría

(%)

(%)

17.7 19.4 13.4 19.1 40.6

79.8 a 79.8a 86.1 a 80.3 a 58.2b

58.3 45.5 73.9 39.1

41.0 54.3 24.6 34.4-Haya de la Torre 25.5-Odría

SOURCE: Carlos Astiz, Pressure Groups and Power Elites in Peruvian Politics, pp. 104 and 111. a Mostly cast for Haya de la Torre. b Majority cast for Odría.

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Belaúnde owed his victory to the southern sierra, where the indigenous communities gave him great support. The 1963 election closed a year in which a strong military regime had been able to repress incipient peasant mobilization. Invasions had been terminated, and peasant federations brought under government control. However, aside from limited land reform in La Convención, little had been done to solve the root causes of rural unrest. If anything, the potential for mass mobilization was greater than ever. The new president's campaign had renewed the comuneros9 hopes of regaining their land. Events were to show that he had set off an unanticipated reaction in the countryside. August, 1963: The Invasions Resume On July 28, 1963—the day of Belaúnde's inauguration—three thousand villagers from San Pedro de Cajas (department of Junín) occupied eight thousand hectares of Hacienda Chinchausuri. The prefect of Junín, a Belaúnde appointee, announced that the occupation was a recuperation of lands that rightfully belonged to San Pedro. 36 Police were not called in, and there was no violence. Much as Rancas's successful land seizure had set off a wave of invasions throughout Pasco three years earlier, the events in San Pedro de Cajas began a new tide of peasant unrest. Many of the communities in Pasco that had been ejected from haciendas during President Prado's "operation eviction" now felt that it was safe to retake the land. Thus, the peasants of Yanahuanca, victims of a massacre one year before, reoccupied Hacienda Pocayán in early August. Ten days later, members of the community of Rancas seized eleven thousand hectares from Hacienda Paría. The villages of Huyllay, Huaychao, and Pallachara occupied haciendas in August. In September, Vilcabamba, Yanacocha, and others joined the tide. In all, during the first two months of the Belaúnde administration, Pasco had thirty invasions. The major targets of these seizures were the Cerro de Pasco Corporation and the Algolán Corporation, the department's two largest landowners. Sixteen of Algolán's haciendas were occupied, with twenty communities seizing 65,000 hectares of land. Dr. Manuel Gálvez, head of the Peruvian Livestock Association, charged that a total of 200,000 hectares of land was seized 35

MacLeán, La reforma agraria, p. 123.

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and that these seizures involved every hacienda in the department. 37 These invasions were nothing more than an extension of the earlier Pasco land movement of 1960-1962. Once the rigid controls of the military junta were removed, underlying rural tensions in the department brought on a new wave of unrest. However, unlike the previous rural mobilization, these invasions spread far beyond Pasco's borders. Starting in the neighboring department of Junín and spreading to the south, a series of village land occupations swept over the sierra. Mobilization in Junín The department of Junín is located in the central highlands of Peru, directly south of Pasco. In 1962 it was one of the sierra's largest departments, with a population of 521,000 people. Like Pasco, its peasant villages had a predominantly cholo, rather than Indian,

Fig. 5.3. Department of Junín culture. Quechua was the primary language of nearly half of its adults, but over 90 percent of the population spoke Spanish, as well. Junín's adult literacy rate of 61 percent was the highest of any high37

La Prensa, October 2, 1963, p. 1, and October 4, 1963, p. 4.

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land department. 38 Levels of urban contact and modernity in the region were far higher than in the southern sierra. By 1960 virtually all of the department's comunidades were recognized by the Ministry of Labor and enjoyed the legal protection that came with recognition. In total, there were 276 officially recognized comunidades with a population of 220,000. Like Pasco, the northern provinces of Junín (Junín, Tarma, and Yauli) based their economies on metal production and ranching. The region had few mines but contained the Cerro Corporation's copper, zinc, and lead refineries in La Oroya. The region's comunidades had a history of conflicts with neighboring ranches much like those that prevailed in Pasco. Thus, the mobilization of Junín's peasantry was induced by essentially the same factors that produced unrest in Pasco. Although Junín's rural tensions erupted into open conflict at a later date, the land seizures in both departments were part of a single movement. In the early months of the Belaúnde administration, over forty of the department's communities occupied hacienda lands. Junín's prefect, Raúl Zárate, defended the invading comuneros as he had done since the department's first land seizure at San Pedro de Cajas. Rather than evict comuneros through police actions, Zárate preferred to negotiate with village leaders. On a number of occasions he convinced villagers to peacefully evacuate occupied lands, which were then declared neutral territory pending further negotiations (that is, the land belonged to neither the comunidad nor the hacienda). Sometimes he accompanied village leaders to Lima in support of their land claims. This conciliatory policy was unprecedented in previous instances of peasant unrest and was typical of the liberal position maintained by the Belaúnde government throughout the central sierra. The eighty occupations that took place in Pasco and Junín in late 1963 brought on little police repression or bloodshed. By the end of the year, the number of invasions in the central sierra dwindled simply because most mobilized villages were in de facto control of disputed lands or expected to receive them from the government in the near future. This situation contrasted sharply with previous events in Pasco (1960-1962) and with future developments in Cuzco and the South. 38

Dirección Nacional de Estadística y Censos, Sexto censo nacional de población. These figures do not include Junín's small tribal population.

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The Mobilization of Junius "Feudatarios" Our discussion to this point has focused on the mobilization of Junín's comuneros. Now it would be fruitful to consider the role that hacienda peons, or feudatarios, played during this period of rural unrest. What was the relationship between hacienda tenants and village smallholders in the department's peasant movement? In examining these questions we must recognize that the objectives and behavior of the mobilized feudatarios were usually quite distinct from those of the comuneros. The feudatarios were, of course, already using a significant portion of the hacendado's land, having been granted usufruct of their plots in return for various types of semifeudal obligations.39 Unlike the village peasantry, they rarely contested the hacendado's ownership of the land. Instead, their grievances generally concerned the terms of their labor obligations to the patrón. Consequently, their characteristic form of protest was not a land invasion, but rather a strike in which they withheld all or part of their traditional labor and sharecropping obligations.40 In their initial stages, at least, the peones' demands and their mode of mobilization tended to be more restrained than those of the comuneros. For a variety of reasons the mobilization of feudatarios did not receive as much attention either in scholarly studies or from the Peruvian press as did the village land seizures. To begin with, the hacienda peon tended to be more isolated from Peru's modern sector than was the village smallholder. Feudatarios were less likely to travel to nearby provincial capitals or to have contact with the sierra's mestizo middle class.41 Consequently, in many instances their mobilization remained unnoticed by the outside world. In addition, a strike by hacienda tenants had less immediate and dramatic impact than an armed invasion of hacienda land. The newspapers 39 See pp. 25-28, above, for a general description of patrón-ipeon relations on the sierra hacienda. 40 In a strike, the hacienda tenants presumably view the withdrawal of these obligations as a temporary cessation of rent designed to pressure the hacendado into a more-favorable tenancy arrangement. Should the feudatarios permanently refuse to pay any rent on their plots, they would in effect be taking possession of the plots. The most-radical escalation of tenant protest would be a seizure of the land cultivated by the hacendado. Earlier in this chapter we saw that the colonos in La Convención escalated their protest from the first through the third stages described here. In Junín and the central sierra, an escalation such as that did not commonly occur among mobilized feudatarios. 41 See p. 29, above.

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of Huancayo, Cuzco, and Lima might carry vivid photographs of entire comunidades—men, women, and children—marching onto hacienda lands, armed with pitchforks and carrying Peruvian flags. Obviously, photographs could not be produced of feudatarios withholding their labor or sharecropping obligations. Thus, it is not surprising that the press devoted little space to peon unrest. Finally, throughout Junín, peasant mobilization was, in fact, less prevalent on the haciendas than in the comunidades.42 Yet, in various parts of the central sierra, hacienda peones did challenge the traditional rights of their patrones. Isolated instances of such unrest date at least as far back as the 1940's, and these challenges increased significantly during the mobilization of the early 1960's. For the most part, the living conditions of Junín's hacienda peasants and their obligations to the landlord were not as onerous as those in Cuzco and other portions of the mancha india.43 Consequently, it might be expected that the feudatarios of the central sierra would have fewer grievances against their landlords. However, during the postwar period, changing social conditions opened the door to rural unrest. Two factors were of primary importance— the hacienda peasantry's increasing contacts with the outside world and a trend toward absentee ownership of sierra haciendas. Events in Junín's Yanamarca Valley demonstrated the impact of these developments. 44 Despite Yanamarca's proximity to the copper refineries of La Oroya and its direct road links to Lima, the valley's yanaconas45 had been allowed little contact with Peru's modern sector prior to World War II. Most hacienda peasants had not been permitted to travel to Lima or to the departmental capital of Huancayo. Few of the region's yanaconas were literate, and opportunities for educational advancement were extremely limited. Those feu42 Discussion with Julio Cotler, a noted scholar of peasant mobilization in Peru. 43 For a discussion of hacienda conditions in Cuzco, see Gustavo Palacio Pimentel, "Relaciones de trabajo entre el patrón y los colonos en los fundos de la provincia de Paucartambo," Revista Universitaria del Cuzco 46, no. 112 (1961): 174-222. 44 The description of peasant mobilization in the Yanamarca Valley that follows is based primarily on F. LaMond Tullis, Lord and Peasant in Peru, Part II. 45 The term used in the region for hacienda peons. In this section the terms yanacona, peón, colono, feudatario, and tenant will be used interchangeably.

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datarlos who were bold enough to ask their hacendados to provide schools for their children were almost invariably refused. Through the 1930's and 1940's most of the valley's landlords lived among their peones and maintained a traditional patron-client relationship. As in other areas of the sierra, the bonds between hacendado and tenant were based on reciprocity—a reciprocity, however, that was highly favorable to the patrón. Peasants were granted small plots of land (perhaps five or six acres) upon which they could build a simple home and raise several subsistence crops. They usually were also allowed to graze their animals on the hacendado's pasture land and were granted a weekly ration of coca and alcohol. In return for these limited benefits, feudatarios furnished their landlords with three to five days per week of free labor. In many instances the tenants were required to supplement their own labor obligations by bringing a helper—generally the peasant's son or wife—for several days a week. This further reduced the family's ability to work its own plot of land. Frequently, the feudatario's wife was required to provide occasional unpaid domestic service in the casa grande ("the hacendados home"), while the children tended the landlord's animals. Finally, peasants were generally required to use their own animals to fertilize and work the hacendados land.46 Discipline on the hacienda was strictly maintained. For example, peones guarding the hacendados flocks were responsible for the welfare of the animals. Should a sheep or llama die while under a peasant's care, he was required to replace the animal with one of his own, regardless of whether or not he was personally responsible for the loss.47 Peasant informers, called soplones ("wind blowers"), reported tenants who failed to fulfill their labor obligations to the hacendado.48 Offending peasants might be subjected to corporal punishment, confiscation of farm animals, or, in extreme cases, expulsion from the hacienda. Obviously, any feudatario who expressed dis-

46

Tullis, Lord and Peasant, p p . 91-93, 111-112, and 137. This was a common practice in the sierra even among supposedly enlightened landowners, such as the American-owned Cerro de Pasco Corporation. 48 Craig, From Hacienda to Community, suggests that soplones were a common enforcement tool in La Conventión's haciendas. Because the highly dependent peasants were so desperate to win their patrón's favor, soplones were always readily available. They served throughout the sierra as part of what Cotler called "the mechanism of domination" on the hacienda. 47

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satisfaction with his labor obligations or who tried to organize his fellow peones faced a similar fate. The patrón's ironhanded rule over his peasants was tempered by periodic benefits granted to individual tenants or to the feudatarios as a whole. Thus, for example, the hacendado often served as godfather to the children of his valued peones, providing the new infants with both gifts and prestige. During fiestas and religious ceremonies the patrón supplied his tenants with alcohol and the like. In short, as LaMond Tullís suggests, rewards and sanctions were combined in proper portion so that the feudatarios generally accepted their situation.49 As long as the hacienda peasantry remained illiterate and isolated from the outside world, the traditional landlord-tenant relationship went unchallenged. During the early 1940's, however, many feudatarios in the haciendas of the Yanamarca Valley began to expand their contacts with nearby urban centers. A crucial factor permitting this new freedom was the growing number of hacendados who left their land for the more exciting environs of Huancayo or Lima. Administration of the haciendas was left in the hands of hired administrators and, occasionally, trusted peones known as caporales. Under this form of absentee ownership, the traditional paternalistic ties between landlord and tenant began to wear thin. Moreover, administrators often did not hold as tight a rein over the peasants' lives as the patrón had. A number of feudatarios made the most of such opportunities by extending their contacts with the outside world.50 This new familiarity with nearby urban centers convinced many peasants that literacy and education were the paths through which their children might achieve a better life. Since there were no educational opportunities on the haciendas, the more-dynamic peones sent their children away to school in nearby distrito capitals. Such activities would have been frowned upon by the hacendados; but, removed from their land as they were, the patrones were no longer 49

Tullis, Lord and Peasant, p. 93. This trend toward absentee ownership was not restricted to Junín or the central highlands. Julio Cotler has suggested that throughout the sierra from the 1950's onward hacendados were under strong pressure from their children and families to leave their land for the more-interesting attractions of urban life. 50

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able to keep a close watch on their tenants. In time these students were to form the nucleus of local peasant leadership. One individual in particular was to play an important role in the early mobilization of Yanamarca's feudatarios. His name was Moisés Ortega, a secondary schoolteacher in the village of Acolla and an activist in the Aprista party. During the early 1940's Ortega brought together a number of young students from neighboring haciendas for periodic discussion groups. Here they were inculcated with APRA's populistic ideology and with a determination to change the unacceptable tenancy conditions under which their families lived. During this period Ortega himself tried to organize sindicatos on Hacienda Yanamarca and on several other haciendas in the valley. The low level of solidarity among the feudatarios and the repressive reaction of the hacendados and the local guardia conspired to crush the movement at that time. However, the students whom Ortega trained eventually returned to their haciendas to lead more successful peasant protests. 51 Peasant mobilization on Hacienda Chuquishuari (in the Junín province of Jauja) illustrates the role played by Ortega's disciples. In 1950 Alejandro Aquina returned from his studies in Acolla to found his hacienda's first primary school. Two years later, seeking to improve working conditions at Chuquishuari, Aquina organized his fellow feudatarios into a sindicato. The peasants' demands concentrated in four areas. First, they sought to reduce their heavy labor obligation to the patrón from six to three days per week. Wives and children of peones should no longer have to provide free labor at the casa grande. The hacendado, not the peasants, should provide the animals for work on the patrón's own land. Finally, the peasants demanded that their hacendado cease arbitrarily taking their animals without proper payment. Unless these demands were met, the peones would strike and withhold all labor from their landlord. Aquina and his fellow tenants realized that their modest demands would meet with stiff opposition from the patrón and that they might expect swift reprisals. Consequently, sindicato members agreed in advance to impose fines on anyone who bowed to pressures and broke the strike. As expected, guardia from the city of 51

Tullis, Lord and Peasant, pp. 117-118 and 124.

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Jauja were called in, and several sindicato leaders, including Alejandro Aquina, were arrested. Other peasants were dismissed from the hacienda. Yet, solidarity among the tenants remained high, and the strike did not break. Two factors strengthened the position of the striking peasants. First, the political climate in Peru had changed sufficiently by 1952 to inhibit hacendados from taking the type of stern measures that had previously been possible. Even under the conservative dictatorship of General Odría, the guardia hesitated to shoot striking peasants. This was particularly true in Odría's home state of Junín, where the president tried to maintain a populist image.52 Second, increased peasant migration from the sierra to Peru's coastal cities had reduced the hacendados9 supply of available peons from neighboring communities. Nor could the economically inefficient hacendados afford to pay wage laborers. Thus, the feudatarios were in a far better bargaining position than they had been in the past. 53 For the peasants of Hacienda Chuquishuari, victory came more easily than they had dared to hope. Within several months their patrón broke down under the strain of the conflict and became fatally ill. His wife and family were unprepared to continue the struggle against their tenants and decided to sell the hacienda to the feudatarios. The land was sold for 250,000 soles (approximately $13,000) payable over a five-year period. In the neighboring hacienda of Cachi Cachi, another of Moisés Ortega's students, Tomás Esteban, also played a central role in the mobilization of his fellow peones. During the early 1950's Esteban organized Cachi Cachi's peasants to resist the pending sale of their hacienda to the Sociedad Ganadera del Pacífico. The Sociedad, a large sheep-raising corporation, planned to evict Cachi Cachfs peones and replace them with the firm's own trained workers. With the aid of a sympathetic government official in Lima, a sindicato formed by the hacienda's peasants blocked the sale. Ultimately the 52 Odría came from the city of Tarma, relatively near the Yanamarca Valley. Also, as we shall see later in this chapter, in recent decades violence generally has been applied less frequently by the government against the peasants of the central sierra than in Cuzco and the mancha india. 53 Tullis, Lord and Peasant, pp. 114-115. Tullís notes that increased competition from the more-efficient coastal haciendas had put highland hacendados in a considerable economic squeeze.

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feudatarios were able to purchase a portion of the hacienda for their own continued use. In their struggle to protect their plots, Cachi Cachi's colonos received support from another important group of peasant activists. During the 1940's and 1950's a small, but significant, number of young hacienda peones from the Yanamarca Valley had secured employment in the La Oroya copper refineries. The size of the hacienda work force employed by the Cerro de Pasco Corporation never approached the number of employed comuneros. 54 However, the few young men who returned to their haciendas from the refineries brought the reformist ideology of the Aprista labor unions with them. Frequently they used their union experience in the creation of Yanamarca's hacienda sindicatos. In Hacienda Cachi Cachi former refinery workers also elicited financial and technical assistance from the La Oroya metal workers' union. One final example of hacienda unrest illustrates the importance of outside contacts in the initial stages of peasant mobilization. During the early 1950's the feudatarios of Hacienda Tingo in the Yanamarca Valley began a prolonged struggle against the repressive labor obligations imposed upon them by their absentee landlord. 55 As in Cachi Cachi, peones with previous experience in the mines and refineries took an active role in the protest movement. The key actor, however, was a former university student named Manuel Grijalba, the son of a Junín comunero. As a young man, Grijalba had left his village to work in the La Oroya refineries. After attaining a secondary school degree, he entered the medical school at Lima's San Marcos University. In 1945, Grijalba was forced to flee from Lima because of his record as an APRA activist. Returning to his native Junín, he married the daughter of a Tingo peón and secured tenancy for himself on the hacienda. When Manuel Grijalba first settled on Hacienda Tingo, his educational and political background was not known to either his new patron or his fellow feudatarios. However, when Tingo's peasants began their struggle against their landlord, Grijalba became their chief spokesman. With his advanced education and familiarity with Peru's legal system, he was "Interview with Alfredo Paredes, public-relations officer of the Cerro de Pasco Corporation. "Tullís, Lord and Feasant, pp. 85-111.

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able to suggest a rather unique protest strategy. Tingo's feudatarios simply declared themselves to be an independent comunidad with ownership over their own plots of land. Manuel Grijalba was elected personero of the comunidad, that is, ofiBcial representative of the community to the national government. A village sindicato was also founded. Because of the peones9 high level of solidarity, Tingo's sindicato survived the arrest of Grijalba and several other peasant leaders. When one of the union officials was arrested, another would rise to take his place. By 1958, years of labor conflict and economic mismanagement had placed Tingo's hacendado so deeply in debt that he was ready to sell his land to the feudatarios. The patrón's position was further complicated because his title to Tingo was being contested by several of his relatives throughout the period of peasant mobilization. One of these relatives had previously sold Tingo's feudatarios his claim to the hacienda. Thus, the striking peones not only were in de facto control of most of Tingo's land, but also could present the courts with titles to the hacienda that were as valid as those of their former patrón. Finding himself in a somewhat untenable position, the hacendado resolved to make the best of a bad situation and sold the tenants his own claim. The financial burden to Tingo's peones was substantial. In all, over $15,000 was paid in legal fees and purchases. Yet, the peasants considered the arrangement well worth it, for the land was now theirs. 56 Juníns "Feudatarios" and the "Comunero" Land-Invasion Movement. The events in Junín's Yanamarca Valley suggest that certain segments of the department's feudatarios had been mobilized prior to the land-seizure movement of 1963. However, only a small segment of the region's peones had actively challenged their patrones and the existing pattern of labor obligations. Moreover, the objectives and the protest methods of the hacienda peasantry were rather restrained. Usually the striking peones would merely demand a modest reduction in their labor obligations or the elimination of particularly onerous practices by the hacendado (such as periodic confiscation of the peasants' animals). Those feudatarios who actually sought possession of their plots were generally willing to pay their patrones substantial amounts of money for them. 56

Ibid., pp. 107-108.

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The wave of comunero land seizures that followed President Belaúnde's inauguration undoubtedly accelerated the mobilization of Junín's hacienda peasantry. By that time, the feudatarios of the central sierra had established a fairly extensive network of contacts with the outside world. Their more-articulate leaders knew that comunidades throughout the area were challenging the hacendados' authority and that the Belaúnde administration had adopted a somewhat permissive position toward those challenges. It is difficult to ascertain how many of Junín's haciendas experienced peasant unrest during the early months of Belaúnde's administration. News of feudatario strikes received less outside attention than did comunero land invasions. However, there is evidence that in the northern portions of the department—particularly in the areas adjoining La Oroya and the department of Pasco—an increasing number of peones organized hacienda sindicatos.57 Inspired by the bolder activity of the village peasantry, some feudatarios accelerated their demands and intensified their methods of protest. In the early stages of mobilization peones merely sought improved working conditions, but during the 1960's some of them began to seize the land. In Hacienda Yanamarca, for example, tenants had tried for a number of years to reduce their labor obligations peacefully. In 1963, inspired by the department's spreading rural unrest, these peasants invaded the land that their patrón had formerly farmed and took total control of the hacienda. 58 Thus, the increased militancy of many Junín feudatarios complimented the comuneros' challenge to the hacienda system. Ironically, however, peasant mobilization often brought village and hacienda campesinos into conflict with each other. In various haciendas these two groups found themselves vying for the same land. LaMond Tullis graphically describes the conflicts of interest that arose in Junín's Yanamarca Valley: "How compatible were the haciendas and the Indian communities in the Yanamarca region? In spite of the cultural and ethnic similarity of the peasants associated with each of the two institutions, they have been greatly at odds with each other . . . The reason is simple enough—resource competi57

Interview with Dr. Jesús Véliz Lizárraga, professor of sociology, Universidad del Centro and San Marcos University. 58 Tullis, Lord and Peasant, p. 142.

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t i o n . . . between the freed hacienda [feudatarios] and the comunidades"59 All too often invading peasant communities found themselves occupying hacienda lands that the peones had just purchased (or seized) from the hacendado. "The Indian comunidades, in the name of 'revindication' were fighting for the return of lands to them which the hacienda peasants and their families had earlier struggled to wrest from the hacendados! While the hacendados are gone, unfortunately the conflicts they engendered are not."60 Such conflicts occasionally brought peones and comuneros into physical conflict with each other. Soon after tenants of Hacienda Chuquishuari (Jauja) bought their plots from their former patrón, they were challenged by the peasant communities of Paca and Pacapaccha, who claimed legal title to the lands. According to the comuneros, the disputed Chuquishuari lands were never the hacendados to sell and, consequently, the feudatarios' purchase had no validity. When peasants from Paca and Pacapaccha marched onto the hacienda carrying a court order supporting their claims, they were attacked by Chuquishuari's former tenants. Two villagers were killed in the battle. Shortly thereafter, guardia from Jauja were put in the unusual position of escorting invading comuneros back onto the land. "Even so, the lawyers of the Chuquishuari peasants had advised their clients to fight to the death to prevent the Indian comunidades from taking the lands."61 Such violent conflict as this was somewhat exceptional. However, it did reflect a more generalized division between Junín's comuneros and feudatarios. Because these two groups were often vying for the same lands, hacienda peones generally did not establish effective links with the more politically articulate village peasantry. When Junín's independent peasant communities organized a Departmental Federation of Comunidades (FEDECOJ), feudatarios did not become actively involved.62 Nor did the hacienda peones form their

59

Ibid., pp. 79-80. Ibid., p. 82; italics in original text. 61 Ibid., p . 84. 62 Interview with Manuel Canchucaja, secretary general of F E D E C O J . Canchucaja stated that his peasant federation had not been able to recruit hacienda colonos. See Chapter 6, below, for a discussion of the political significance of F E D E C O J and other peasant federations. 60

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own sindicato federations. Thus, for the most part, individual instances of feudatario mobilization in Junín were not institutionally linked with a broader rural movement. This fact ultimately weakened their impact on the national political system. The Movement in Cuzco Two months after Junín's first invasion, rural unrest spread to the highlands of Cuzco, one of the most-traditional regions in Peru. Once that area had been the center of the great Incan empire, and in 1960 the department's 1,500 comunidades still preserved much

Fig. 5.4.

Department of Cuzco

of their Indian heritage. Over 90 percent of Cuzco's inhabitants spoke Quechua, while only 40 percent could speak Spanish. Nearly two-thirds of the region's adults were illiterate. In short, the region lagged behind the departments of the central sierra in virtually every aspect of socioeconomic development. Thus, the mobilization of Cuzco's comunidades initiated a significant new phase in Peru's rural unrest. Previously, large-scale peasant movements had only emerged in two relatively advanced areas—La Convención and the central sierra. The campesinos of both those regions were fairly

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well integrated into the national culture prior to their political mobilization. They had established autonomous links with the national economy and polity and had thereby broken the control of the local power structure in the countryside. In the mancha india, however, the indigenous communities still seemed to be under mestizo or white control. The feudal haciendas of the South appeared to have been immune to the shock waves that were affecting the central highlands. But forces of change were at work in the mancha india in the 1950's. They were different from the forces in the Center, to be sure, but of equal importance. What were some of the factors that induced peasant mobilization in the traditional Cuzco countryside? To begin with, earlier rural movements in La Convención had planted the seeds of discontent in the nearby sierra. Though La Convención itself was not in the highlands, most of its tenants had migrated from there. News of their movement spread quickly to their native villages. Comunidad leaders learned of lawyers and union officials in the department capital who would help them with their land disputes. Once a few highland villages had successfully challenged the local mestizo power structure, the demonstration effect was tremendous. Village leaders traveling to the city of Cuzco on business heard of peasant federations in their region that were demanding land for the comuneros. Community-based sindicatos and provincial federations developed throughout Cuzco. Even some hacienda peons sent delegates to sympathetic lawyers in the department capital to ascertain their legal rights. 63 Although most of Cuzco's comunidades had low levels of literacy and urban contact, few villages were totally isolated from the modern world. Even a community like Punabamba had some members who could speak Spanish or who traveled to Cuzco occasionally. As we have seen, radios brought the twentieth century into the most primitive peasant villages. The few literate comuneros served as the leadership nucleus for sindicatos and land seizures. Those villages that lacked local leadership often turned to students from the department capital for help. Such men as Vládimir Valer, Hugo Blanco's brother-in-law, organized many villages around the city of 63

See Héctor Martínez Arellano, "La Hacienda Capana," Perú Indígena 10, nos. 24-25 (1963): 37-64.

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Cuzco. Thus, despite heavy police persecution of organizers during the year of military rule (1962-1963), the basis for a peasant movement in the region was laid. In December, 1962, for example, three thousand peasants demonstrated in Cuzco's central square demanding meaningful agrarian reform. Belaúnde's campaign the following year raised hopes among the peasants that their long struggle for land might be rewarded. In September, 1963—two months after Belaúnde's inauguration— the Cuzco highlands witnessed its first village land seizure. Confrontations with local police soon followed. On October 12, the communities of Ccapamarcca, Sayhua, and Huancabamba invaded Hacienda Percasenca. In a subsequent battle with police, two comuneros were killed and eight wounded. A second invasion by Ccapamarcca left five more villagers dead. 64 As the rate of seizures increased, fear spread quickly among the department's landowners. In the provinces of Acomayo, Canchis, and Chumbivilcas, hacendados, hoping to repress challenges to their traditional domination, formed defense leagues.65 However, these leagues were unable to stem the tide of peasant unrest. Villagers responded to the hacendados by forming their own defense leagues in the provinces of Anta, Canas, Canchis, and Paruro. The new peasant organizations promoted intervillage cooperation and coordinated land seizures involving several communities. In some instances, comuneros cooperated with hacienda peons in their seizures.66 By early November, eighty invasions had reportedly taken place in the department. The Cuzco Confederation of Peasants and other regional peasant organizations held a number of rallies calling for land redistribution. In the department capital several thousand members of the Peasant Confederation (the CCDC), the Cuzco Federation of Labor ( F T C ) , and the Cuzco Student Federation (FUC) gathered to demand land reform and the release of imprisoned peasant leaders.

64

El Sol (Cuzco), October 27, 1963, p. 3, and October 29, 1963, p. 5. Ibid. 66 There were also occasions on which the peons feared that the invading comuneros would rob them of their small plots. Consequently, hacienda colonos sometimes helped the hacendados fight off the invaders. However, such instances were rare, and invading villagers usually assured the peons that it was not their lands that the comuneros were after. 65

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Afterward, one thousand people attacked the department penitentiary. Peasant unrest in Cuzco provoked more direct confrontations with police and more violence than in Junín or Pasco. Generally the invading villagers were unarmed or merely carried sticks, rocks, and farm tools. Considering the animosities that the invading comuneros undoubtedly bore toward the hacendados, the peasants instituted amazingly little violence. At the height of the Cuzco invasions, many communities announced seizures in advance to permit hacendados to leave and thereby to avoid bloodshed. Virtually all the bloodshed that resulted from the invasions was initiated by the police or the landowners. On Christmas Day guards at Hacienda Ninabamba killed seven invading peasants. Such massacres apparently further mobilized and radicalized the villagers. While peasants rarely harmed landlords, they did attack police stations occasionally, seeking to avenge a police massacre or to free their imprisoned leaders. In December, 1963, guardia posts were attacked in the provinces of Urubamba and Quispicanchis. On Christmas Eve three thousand peasants marched on the provincial capital of Sicuani and tried to free several imprisoned comuneros. In nearby Urcos eight thousand campesinos rallied to protest the massacre at Hacienda Ninabamba. Vládimir Valer led a supporting rally of comuneros, students, and workers in the department capital. Scattered violence continued into the new year.67 Unrest among Cuzcos "Feudatarios." In Cuzco, as in the central sierra, peasant unrest quickly spilled beyond the boundaries of the comunidades and into the feudalistic southern haciendas. 68 In such provinces as Anta, Canchis, Quispicanchis, and Paucartambo, hacienda peasants, aided by urban-based radicals, created a series of

67 El Sol, November 5, 1963, p. 3; November 14, 1963, p. 9; December 2 1 , 1963, p. 1; and January 4, 1964, p . 1; La Prensa, November 15, 1963, p. 12. Also MacLeán, La reforma agraria, p. 133. 68 Of course, we have seen that the first major peasant mobilization in Cuzco took place among the hacienda colonos of La Convención. But, as I indicated earlier, this movement took place in the high jungle known as the montaña, not in the sierra. In the highlands large-scale peasant unrest seems to have spread first to the comunidades—form whence most of La Convención's colonos originated—and then spilled over into the highland haciendas.

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sindicato federations. In numerous haciendas, illiterate feudatarios demonstrated a surprising level of political sophistication. Among the various sectors of Peru's rural population, the hacienda feudatarios of the southern sierra were the most socially and economically disadvantaged. We previously noted that Cuzco and the other departments of the mancha india lagged behind the remainder of the nation in every major indicator of social mobilization and modernity—literacy, capacity to speak the national language, exposure to the mass media, and the like.69 The feudatarios of the southern sierra were the most traditional segment of Peru's most traditional region. Julio Cotler's study of peasant mobilization in Cuzco's Canchis and Paucartambo provinces indicates the socioeconomic gap between the area's comuneros and hacienda peones.70 Cotler collected data on the populations of five traditional haciendas in the Paucartambo Valley and two indigenous communities near the city of Sicuani. Peasants in all seven groups were asked whether they spoke Spanish, whether they were literate, how often they listened to the radio, and so forth. In each of these social indicators the feudatarios sharply trailed their comunero counterparts (Table 5.3). TABLE 5.3 Social Mobilization of Cuzco's Peasantry Paucartambo Haciendas

Canchis Comunidades

(%)

(%)

16 Spanish-speaking peasants 6 Literate peasants Have never heard a radio 40 Listen to radio daily 11 Travel to provincial capital once weekly 6 Can name president of Peru 26

62 39 13 49 74 51

SOURCE: Julio Cotler, "Traditional Haciendas and Communities in a Context of Political Mobilization in Peru," p. 553. 69

See pp. 17-19, above. See also, Dirección Nacional de Estadística y Censos, Sexto censo. 70 Julio Cotler, "Traditional Haciendas and Communities in a Context of Political Mobilization in Peru," in Agrarian Problems and Peasant Movements in Latin America, ed. Rodolfo Stavenhagen, pp. 533-559.

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Not only were the hacienda peasants more isolated from Peru's modern sector than were the village smallholders, but also they were more likely to adopt a fatalistic perspective toward the future and to accept their inferior position in the region's social hierarchy. Thus, for example, feudatarios were over twice as likely as comuneros to accept the proposition that "Indians are born to obey.'' Given this fatalistic viewpoint, it is not surprising that hacienda peones participated less frequently in the electoral process (Table 5.4). 71 TABLE 5.4 Levels of Fatalism and Political Apathy among Cuzco's Peasantry

Agree that "Indians are born to obey" Agree that "some people are born to rule, others to obey" Agree that "destiny cannot be changed" Are registered to vote

Paucartambo Haciendas

Canchis Comunidades

(%)

(%)

86

40

90 84 5

66 62 39

SOURCE: J. Cotler, "Traditional Haciendas and Communities," pp. 554-555.

In short, available data suggest that the highland feudatarios in Cuzco generally lacked the outside contacts and the level of social mobilization that contributed to peasant unrest in other parts of the sierra. If, as Gerrit Huizer has contended, the most backward sectors of the peasantry rarely challenge the existing sociopolitical order, then Cuzco's hacienda peones were unlikely prospects for political mobilization.72 "Obviously, it is hazardous to generalize from a limited sample such as this to Cuzco's entire peasant population. Unfortunately, the Peruvian census bureau and other data-gathering agencies do not have systematic statistics that distinguish between comuneros and hacienda peasantry. One study of the Pampa de Anta in Cuzco revealed that feudatarios in that region actually had higher average annual incomes than did neighboring village smallholders (see Dirección de Comunidades Campesinas, Projecto anta: Datos para adjudicación). However, it is generally agreed by students of rural Peru that most hacienda peones in Cuzco are less educated and modernized than are the department's comuneros. 72 Gerrit Huizer, "Peasant Organizations and Agrarian Reform in Latin America."

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Yet, as we have seen, these were not ordinary times. The demonstration effect of peasant unrest—first in La Convención and later in nearby comunidades—was felt throughout the department. Héctor Martínez's case study of mobilization in the province of Quispicanchis (Cuzco) illustrates the influence of Hugo Blanco's La Convención movement on certain sierra feudatarios.73 Hacienda Capana, located approximately 140 kilometers from the provincial capital of Urcos, was one of the larger latifundios in the province of Quispicanchis. Its 16,000 hectares (40,000 acres) were divided among five estancias ("estates") and contained 250 feudatario families. In 1960 it was one of the few haciendas in the area in which the hacendado still lived on his land. As in most haciendas of the mancha india, life for the tenant families of Capana was not easy. Each peón was obligated to render 160 days per year of free labor on the hacendado's land. In addition, the tenants' wives and children provided free labor in the casa grande (washing the patrón's clothing, cleaning, etc.) and in the fields guarding his flocks. Peones were occasionally required to do construction work on roads, irrigation ditches, wells, and the like—work that was not credited toward the 160-day labor obligation. As was usual in Cuzco's haciendas, peasants were fined when any of the patrón's animals died while under their care or when his crops were lost to natural causes. Tenants could graze their animals on the hacendado's pasture land, but they were required to pay a fee in produce. In return, each feudatario was granted usufruct of a small piece of land, limited grazing rights, and the right to collect fuel in the hacendado's woods. Finally, the peón was given a ration of coca and chicha (the locally brewed beer) and a weekly salary of fifty centavos ($.03). The feudatarios of Capana had always accepted these conditions, since few peasants could conceive of changing them. Because of the hacienda's isolation from the provincial and departmental capitals (there were no direct road links to either city), the feudatarios had extremely limited contacts with the outside world. Among the more than five hundred adults living on the hacienda, only a handful of men and one woman spoke Spanish; the remainder knew only "Martínez, "La Hacienda Capana," pp. 37-64.

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the local Quechua dialect. Only one adult in the entire feudatario population was literate. In August, 1960, two of Capana's peasants were beaten by hacienda mayordomos ("administrators working for the hacendado") for infractions of tenancy obligations. Corporal punishment like this was commonly administered on the haciendas of the mancha india and was normally accepted by the feudatarios as a fact of life. In this instance, however, the peasants reacted in an unexpected manner. Several of them had been to the city of Cuzco, where they had heard reports of peasant protest in the valley of La Convención. More important, they had learned of lawyers and union officials in Cuzco who were willing to extend help to campesinos like themselves. Emboldened by this information, the tenants of Capana sent several representatives to seek assistance. In the departmental capital, they contacted the Cuzco Labor Federation ( F T C ) . Union officials urged the feudatarios to broaden their protest beyond the issue of corporal punishment and to challenge working conditions on the hacienda. The following month, Capana's peones, accompanied by lawyers and officials of the FTC, presented the following list of demands to their hacendado: mayordomos who frequently acted brutally toward hacienda tenants were to be replaced and corporal punishment eliminated; labor obligations would be reduced from 160 to 80 days per year with each day of such labor lasting no more than eight hours; all unpaid labor obligations beyond the 80 days would be eliminated (including household duties by the feudatarios' families); wages for labor rendered to the patrón were to be raised from the nominal level of one-half sol per week to six soles per day; and, finally, tenants would be permitted to send a substitute to fulfill their labor obligations. 74 Under usual circumstances, Capana's hacendado would have considered most of these demands outrageous. Yet, his reaction to the protest indicated the extent to which peasant mobilization in other parts of Cuzco had intimidated many landlords. Recognizing that his peasants were being advised by radicals from Cuzco and cognizant of the dramatic events taking place at that time in La Convención, Capana's owner sought an amicable settlement with 74

Ibid., pp. 42-43. There were other demands, but these were the principal ones.

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his tenants lest they turn to violent seizure of his land. In October, 1960, only two months after the initial feudatario mobilization, the hacendado and his tenants signed a compromise agreement. Peones would henceforth provide 130 days of labor to the patrón at the rate of two soles per day. Corporal punishment and fines for the loss of hacienda animals were terminated. Tenants could send substitutes to fulfill their labor obligations. And, finally, schools were to be built on several of the hacienda's estancias. Armed with this initial victory, the peasants of Capana resolved to organize themselves on a more enduring basis. In each of the hacienda's five estancias, a separate peasant sindicato was formed. The sindicatos, in turn, created sports clubs, women's groups, cooperatives, and other mutual benefit societies. Four of the five sindicatos elected a slate of nine secretaries—a general secretary; a defense secretary; economic, organizational, cooperative, sports, and social aid secretaries; and two secretaries for women's affairs. Thus, some forty adults in a population of only 250 families assumed leadership positions—this, in a body of peasants who were almost entirely illiterate. Feudatarios who had always passively accepted orders from their hacendado and his mayordomos now actively organized to shape their own futures. The level of peasant solidarity varied somewhat from estancia to estancia. In one or two of the sindicatos, friction developed between union leaders and rank-and-file membership. Several officials were suspected of collaborating with the hacendado for personal gain. However, in most instances the new peasant unions served as effective vehicles for joint tenant action. Most decisions within the sindicatos were made at town meetings in which the entire membership participated. Several of the sindicatos regularly sent delegates to FTC congresses in Cuzco. These contacts with outside leftist organizations raised the level of peasant militancy in Capana. Thus, in 1961 one Capana sindicato staged a protest demonstration in support of jailed peasant leaders in La Convención.75 In 1962 the owner of Hacienda Capana, faced with the ongoing mobilization of his tenants, resolved to sell his land. Yet, like many hacendados in the department, he could find no interested buyers. Many prospective purchasers in Cuzco had been dissuaded by the 76

Ibid., p. 52.

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threat of peasant mobilization and by rumors of impending agrarian-reform legislation. Consequently, Capana's hacendado offered to sell the land to his tenants. Ironically, they refused his offer, feeling that they could not afford the price. Ultimately, much of the hacienda was rented to the tenants; the old feudal labor obligations were eliminated and replaced with payments in cash.76 From 1960 onward the newly formed Cuzco Peasant Confederation (CDCC) sent organizers to various haciendas throughout the department seeking to organize sindicatos similar to those on the Hacienda Capana. However, it was not until the inauguration of President Belaúnde and the subsequent unleashing of rural unrest that significant numbers of feudatarios responded to the Federation's appeals. Between October and December of 1963, CDCC representatives succeeded in organizing virtually every hacienda in Cuzco's Paucartambo Valley.77 Shortly thereafter, most of the valley's feudatarios went on strike, refusing to perform their labor obligations to their landlords. The CDCC's radical leadership hoped that these strikes would escalate into land seizures, as had been the case in La Convención. The traditional sierra feudatarios, however, rejected such a radical course of action. For the most part they avoided violent or illegal actions and restricted themselves to more limited objectives—the modification of hacienda working conditions. As a result of the peasant mobilization in Paucartambo and the ensuing valleywide strike, the region's hacendados were forced to accede to a number of modifications in the tenant-landlord relationship. The agreements signed between the hacendados and the peasant sindicatos were known as Acts of Reconciliation and eventually served as models for similar pacts throughout the southern sierra. Essentially, the Acts introduced the following reforms: 78 1. The weekly domestic services previously rendered by the tenants' families in the hacendados' city homes (the semanero) were eliminated 76 Ibid., p. 57. The landlord-tenant arrangements varied from estancia to estancia because each sindicato negotiated its own contract. 77 Cotler, "Traditional Haciendas," p. 544. The valley ran through the provinces of Paucartambo and Quispicanchis. 78 Ibid., p. 545.

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2. Tenants would no longer have to provide "the gratuitous transport of hacienda produce" to the market town 3. Feudatarios could not be compelled to sell their produce to the hacendado 4. Tenants would not be required to work on other haciendas owned by their patrón or his friends 5. The feudatario's labor obligation to his hacendado could not exceed fifteen days in any one month, nor could tenants be required to render such services for two consecutive weeks The consequence of these reforms was not only an improvement in the working conditions on many of Cuzco's haciendas, but also, frequently, a widespread modernization of the feudatarios' entire network of social relationships. For the first time these peasants could sell their produce in nearby market towns and could buy household goods outside the hacienda. Many peones who had never previously left their haciendas now traveled weekly to the nearest commercial center. In the provincial capital of Paucartambo, sixty stores were opened to buy and sell from feudatarios. In short, many hacienda peasants were able to form their first independent links with the outside world. "This change in market relations [favored] the establishment of multiple compadrazgo relations . . . between the mestizo traders and the tenant farmers . . . New and more varied forms of communications [appeared] among the peasants as a result of this new marketing system."79 In other instances, tenants actually purchased their plots from the hacendado.80 And, in still other haciendas, feudal patrón-client

79

Ibid., p. 547. It is instructive to note how frequently hacendados in both Cuzco and Junín (see pp. 94-96, above) sold their property to the tenants when faced with militant peasant mobilization. Julio Cotler has suggested that many hacendados realized in the 1960's that their inefficiently run haciendas were no longer profitable. By selling their land and reinvesting the money in urban real estate, they could make a greater profit and live more comfortably and enjoyably in Lima or the departmental capital. Faced with peasant unrest and the threat of impending agrarian-reform legislation, many hacendados decided that it was wiser to sell than to fight. Selling the land to their own tenants was profitable as well as prudent since the feudatarios frequently paid far more than the market value. 80

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relationships were eliminated in favor of more modern forms of tenancy, such as cash rental. Thus, for a significant number of Cuzco feudatarios, mobilization brought an end to the most repressive aspects of the traditional hacienda life. "Feudatario" Mobilization: Junín and Cuzco

Compared

Initially, we might have expected that the illiterate Quechuaspeaking feudatarios in Cuzco would have less potential for organized mobilization than would have Junín's hacienda peasantry. The general level of social mobilization and exposure to the outside world among Cuzco's peones was significantly lower than among their Junín counterparts. Yet, feudatario mobilization in Cuzco gave birth to a network of peasant sindicatos, whereas Junín's mobilizing peones remained fairly isolated from each other.81 This unexpected difference between the southern and central highland movement can best be explained by the influence of external (i.e., nonpeasant) forces. As we have seen in our earlier discussion of mobilization in the Hacienda Capana, it is unlikely that Cuzco's isolated and uneducated feudatarios could have channeled their discontent into ongoing institutions without the assistance of outside organizers. Labor organizers from Cuzco's urban labor federation (FTC) and the Departmental Peasant Confederation (CDCC) were vital in helping the feudatarios articulate their demands and in creating hacienda sindicatos. Most important, these groups linked individual hacienda movements with other peones in various parts of the department and with mobilized comunidades.82 Ultimately, however, the feudatarios' dependence on outside aid carried its liabilities. When the Belaúnde administration began its assault on Cuzco's leftist peasant leadership in early 1964, the CDCC was seriously weakened. 83 Without urban allies (students

81 That is to say, individual hacienda movements were not linked to other mobilized haciendas or communities through peasant organizations (see p p . 98-99, above). 82 In Capana and other mobilized haciendas, the peasant movement was generated internally (i.e., by the peasants), not by outside organizers. However, outside help was necessary to keep the movement going and to articulate demands and plan strategy. 83 See pp. 119-121, below, for an account of government repression of the

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and labor unions), Cuzco's hacienda peasantry was unable to progress beyond the limited gains already achieved. "Thus, as a result of the mobilization, a series of very important modifications was proposed for the . . . haciendas. However, the general process of social change that might have been stimulated by these modifications and by the organization of the peasants was blocked by a very extensive repression of the peasant organization."84 Thus, in Cuzco as in Junín, feudatario unrest did not have as great a longterm impact as did comunero mobilization. Invasions Spread throughout the Sierra By the end of 1963, village land seizures spread across the nation. In no other departments was peasant mobilization as widespread or as organized as in Pasco, Junín, and Cuzco. But numerous seizures did take place in the highlands of Ayacucho, Lima, Ancash, Cajamarca, and Huánuco. Ultimately, most sierra departments were affected. Belaúnde's promises of land reform undoubtedly contributed to many of the seizures. Comuneros often occupied land to which they had legal claims because they believed that the government was about to redistribute it anyway or because they wished to force the new president's hand. Some villagers felt that landreform legislation had automatically been enacted at the moment of Belaúnde's inauguration. In short, most of the early sierra invasions were carried out by peasants who thought their acts were legal and legitimate; they often believed that they were acting with the new president's approval. Primitive Indian communities in Cuzco and Ayacucho marched onto the land holding their seventeenth-century Spanish titles. They frequently planted Peruvian flags on the occupied territory, indicating that these seizures were merely securing their rights as Peruvian citizens. Even La Prensa

CDCC and other radical peasant groups in Cuzco. More-moderate peasant federations, such as the Christian Democratic unions and the pro-Acción Popular (Belaúnde's party) union in Anta, were not harassed. But these federations never had nearly as much influence and support in the department as did the CDCC. 34 Cotler, "Traditional Haciendas," p. 546.

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acknowledged the comuneros' sincerity: "One hears of agitators who indoctrinate them. . . . Nevertheless, their arguments are sincerely felt."85 In the early months of village mobilization, most invading villages seized only lands that they felt were theirs (usually their claims were supported by ancient titles). However, as the rate of invasions increased, the peasantry became less legalistic; communities took what they thought should belong to them regardless of who held proper title. 86 The occupations followed no single pattern. In some regions university students or urban organizers had an important part in organizing and channeling peasant unrest. In Ayacucho and Cuzco, for example, Quechua-speaking students of comunidad origin were very active in the countryside. In the central and northern sierra, seizures tended to be organized and led entirely by the peasants themselves. The size of invasions also varied. Some involved only a few peasants. In other instances thousands of men and women marched onto hacienda lands. In early 1964, for example, an army of twelve thousand campesinos occupied eighteen haciendas in the northern department of Piura. Several thousand were on horseback, and others armed themselves with rocks and sticks. When heavily armed, but outnumbered, police tried to evict the invaders, fifteen villagers and police were wounded. 87 Thus, the particular details of each invasion varied considerably. However, when the occupations are viewed more broadly, it is possible to discern two peasant movements, each having its own general characteristics. The first movement, dominant in the earlier stages of rural mobilization, involved the cholo and mestizo villages of the northern and central sierra—particularly Pasco and Junín. The second existed in the traditional Indian communities of the South, particularly Cuzco. In this chapter and succeeding ones, I shall argue that the two movements were quite distinct in terms of their initial causes, membership, organization, leadership, political orientation, and consequences. Unfortunately, several important

85

La Prensa, September 8, 1963, Sunday Magazine, p. 14. Comité Interamericano de Desarrollo Agrícola (CIDA), Tenencia de la tierra y desarrollo socioeconómico del sector agrícola: Perú, p. 397. 87 La Prensa, January 15, 1964, p. 7. 86

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studies of peasant mobilization in the sierra have not placed sufficient stress on these distinctions.88 In the central sierra, village mobilization tended to be associated with specific economic grievances. Scarcity of pasture land, expansion of large livestock estates, and diminishing opportunities for employment in the mines were all directly connected with the outbreak of peasant unrest. In Cuzco, however, peasant mobilization was more closely associated with longstanding cultural and socioeconomic repression of the Indian comunidades. Population pressure on community lands was undoubtedly increasing in Cuzco prior to the invasions. However, there is no evidence that seizures were more common in provinces that had the greatest scarcities of land. Unlike Pasco and Junín, Cuzco did not experience a dramatic expansion of haciendas or a sharp decline in opportunities for urban employment (i.e., the reductions in copper mining) prior to its rural mobilization. Thus, it might be useful to think of the Cuzco peasant movement as part of a long historical tradition of Indian rebellions against white (or mestizo) cultural and economic domination.89 The forces of peasant discontent were unleashed by the euphoria of the Belaúnde campaign and by the demonstration effect of previous invasions in La Convención and the central highlands, rather than by specific economic changes. A second important difference between the two movements concerns the role of nonvillage leadership. As we have seen, radical urban elements were more closely associated with rural mobilization in Cuzco than in the Center. The city of Cuzco had long been a leading area of leftist strength. The Cuzco Labor Federation (FTC) was affiliated with the Communist party, while the University Student Federation (FUC) was led mainly by Castroites and Trotskyists. Of the two groups, the FTC was far less radical. It had not shown much interest in organizing peasants prior to the 1963 invasions and was opposed to armed land seizures, since it wished 88

See, for example, MacLeán, La reforma agraria; and Quijano, "El movimiento campesino." Hugo Neira's Los Andes does distinguish somewhat more between mobilization in the South and in the Center. 89 Of course there were major differences between the Cuzco peasant mobilization of 1963-1964 and earlier Indian rebellions (see Chapter 6, below). However, it is useful to note certain similarities in the underlying causes of unrest in the mancha india.

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to remain within the sphere of legitimate party politics (the FTC's antirevolutionary position brought it into open conflict with Hugo Blanco). Yet, the labor group did furnish legal and organizational aid to the Cuzco Confederation of Peasants (CDCC), and the two groups shared a common headquarters in the department capital. The Student Federation (FUC) did not share the FTC's aversion toward violence or armed land occupations. As a result of the Cuban revolution and Hugo Blanco's activities, Cuzco's students were more interested in mobilizing the countryside than were the orthodox communists of the FTC. Therefore, they played a more important role in organizing nearby communities. The situation in Huancayo, La Oroya, and Cerro de Pasco— urban centers of the Junín-Pasco region—was quite different. To begin with, the unions in these cities were controlled by Apristas rather than by leftists. As we have seen, APRA had lost its early revolutionary fervor and its interest in mobilizing the peasantry; it was now primarily concerned with preserving its power base among urban workers and the lower-middle class. The arrests of Genaro Ledesma (the propeasant mayor of Cerro) and of leftist union leaders in La Oroya (primarily members of APRA Rebelde) in 1962-1963 terminated the support that comuneros had been getting from urban unions.90 Moreover, the region's students were never as involved in peasant mobilization as were students in Cuzco. There were a number of reasons for this. The Junín and Pasco comuneros were fairly sophisticated politically and were well integrated into mestizo culture. Consequently, they did not need outside organizational aid as much as the Cuzco peasantry did. While mobilized villagers in Cuzco depended heavily on university students for information about the outside world, comuneros in the central highlands spoke Spanish and had less need of such help. Furthermore, since neither Cerro de Pasco nor La Oroya had universities at the time of the invasions, student organizers were 90 As noted previously, the early Pasco seizures were tied indirectly to tensions in the mines. In some instances miners participated in invasions or organized them. Moreover, there were several large sympathy strikes that the miners organized in support of the comuneros. However, after the 1962 military coup this support ceased to be significant. Radical officials of the metal workers' unions—mainly from the La Oroya refineries—were imprisoned. Aprista union officials did not give the peasants much support.

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simply not at hand in those areas of rural unrest. Huancayo did have a university. However, it was somewhat removed from the major invasion region and had only been established shortly before the start of mobilization in the countryside (1960). At that time students at Huancayo's Central University were not as radical or politicized as their counterparts in Cuzco (they have since moved more actively into leftist politics). Most supported Belaúnde's Popular Action party, while a significant minority were Apristas. During the sierra unrest of the early 1960's, conservative sectors of Peruvian society exaggerated the role that radical urban organizers played in peasant mobilization. Many conservatives were convinced that the land seizures were part of a communist conspiracy to deceive the peasantry. Articles appearing in La Prensa and El Comercio, Peru's leading newspapers, routinely attributed land occupations and peasant demonstrations to the influence of "outside agitators." More objective papers, such as Cuzco's El Sol, noted that most invasions were organized and led by the villagers themselves. Though outside organizers did work with many communities, they usually arrived after mobilization had begun. Often, as in La Convención, they came by invitation of the indigenous peasant leaders. Since many of the student organizers had grown up in the areas in which they were working, they could scarcely be called outsiders. 91 Yet, urban sympathizers were important in the organization and coordination of peasant unrest. The peasant federations in Junín and Pasco—and their urban allies—were less important actors in the rural mobilization of those departments. Finally, the Cuzco movement involved far more violence and bloodshed than did the unrest in the central sierra. Pasco and Junín had no peasant massacres, such as Cuzco's during the Belaúnde regime (there had been some in Pasco under Prado). In large part, this was the result of differing attitudes among local police and administrators. The mestizo and cholo police and officials of the mancha india occasionally failed to recognize mobilized Indian peas91

Of course, conspiracy theories rarely adequately explain large-scale social or political mobilization. "Agitators" and would-be "conspirators" often attempt to mobilize oppressed groups. But further analysis is needed to understand why such outsiders succeed in some instances and fail in others. Outside organizers may be necessary for some mass mobilization, but they are never sufficient.

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ants as human beings. Many mobilized peasants in the South were shot down like animals by guardia officers, who placed greater value on property and law and order than on human life. The southern sierra has a long history of such massacres in times of peasant unrest. Hacendados who shot or beat "insubordinate" peasants could usually expect to escape without serious penalty. This was not true in the more acculturated regions of the Center. Finally, as we shall see, the repression by the southern police was also partially attributable to the policies of the Belaúnde administration. The Belaúnde Regime's Response: 1963-1964 August-November: Conciliation in the Center. I have indicated that the responses of both the Prado administration and the military junta to incipient peasant mobilization were aimed at preserving the political and economic status quo of the countryside. Although Prado had given symbolic attention to agrarian reform, no legislation was ever drafted. In Pasco, peasants were violently cleared from the land. The junta had similarly promised land reform in La Convención but had done little more than arrest Hugo Blanco and other left-wing peasant leaders. In fact, no attempt had yet been made by any of the dominant power contenders in Peruvian politics to integrate the peasants into the decision-making process or to recognize their demands. What was Belaúnde's policy in this regard? As we have seen, the new president's Acción Popular had been the first major political party to look to the peasantry as an important source of votes. Belaúnde's campaign trips through the sierra had helped precipitate rural mobilization. Consequently, one might expect his policies toward peasant unrest to differ considerably from those of his predecessors. The new administration's initial reaction to the PascoJunín seizures confirmed that expectation. As a liberal, legalistically oriented president, Belaúnde was committed to stopping the wave of illegal invasions. He and his cabinet asked the invading villages to await land-reform legislation and to refrain from taking the law into their own hands. In September, 1963, Vice-President Seoane expressed the government's policy in a newspaper interview. He suggested that the occupations were perfectly understandable in light of the land shortages faced by the comuneros and the history of hacienda exploitation in the sierra. However, he insisted that

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these considerations did not justify illegal land seizures. Said Seoane, "Invasions are anarchy."92 The government maintained that peasant unrest was impeding chances for land-reform legislation. The peasants would get the land, said Belaúnde and Seoane, if they would only be patient. Continuing his campaign policy of going directly to the comuneros, the president embarked on a series of trips to the central highlands aimed at persuading the villagers of the government's good intentions. On September 4 he implored an assembly of community leaders in Junín to desist from any further invasions. "Give me two months," he asked, "and I will give you the land legally."93 One week later the government tried to demonstrate its sincerity by extending land redistribution in La Convención. At the same time, Minister of the Interior Oscar Trelles announced that the government would supply two hundred communities in Pasco and Junín with tools and agricultural equipment. Trelles also introduced a new community-development program for the Center. These policies were clearly aimed at reducing peasant unrest in these areas. Belaúnde's conciliatory policy met with some success. On October 3 the leaders of forty Pasco communities signed a noninvasion pact in the presidential palace. In return the government promised their villages technical and economic aid and guaranteed redistribution of some hacienda lands in the near future. Trelles also announced the creation of an intercommunity development council for Pasco. Shortly thereafter the government expropriated several Algolán Corporation estates in that region. In Junín five hundred village leaders met with Belaúnde and agreed to evacuate occupied lands in return for a government pledge of land, roads, and agricultural aid. Evacuated lands were made neutral zones.94 At the same time the government turned to the basic question of agrarian reform. In September a bill was finally placed before Congress after years of discussion. Belaúnde's proposal was less extensive and more generous to hacendados (in its indemnifications) than Vice-President Seoane or the Christian Democrats would have liked. However, the 92

La Prensa, September 8, 1963, Sunday Magazine, p. 14. Ibid., September 5, 1963, p. 1. 94 Ibid., October 4, 1963, p. 1; October 24, 1963, p. 1; and October 31, 1963, p. 1; also MacLeán, La reforma agraria, pp. 129-130. 93

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very fact that a bill was introduced that permitted land expropriations was a dramatic step forward. Belaúnde's legislation was immediately attacked by the National Agricultural Society, a leading landowners' association. The invasions had unquestionably put pressure on Belaúnde and the Congress to institute some reform. Three of the four departments affected by the proposed bill— Cuzco, Junín, and Pasco—were the major areas of peasant unrest. 95 When the legislation showed little sign of moving through the opposition-controlled Congress, Belaúnde realized that he must initiate immediate action if order was to be restored to the sierra. Through presidential decrees he ordered the expropriation of over 100,000 hectares of hacienda land in Pasco and northern Junín, most of which belonged to the Algolán Corporation. Yet, most of the land that the president expropriated was already in the hands of the peasants; the rest had previously been invaded and voluntarily evacuated by the villagers. While Belaúnde's expropriation gave the comuneros little land that they had not already taken themselves (and the principal beneficiaries at Algolán were actually the hacienda's own shepherds), it did exemplify the conciliatory policy that the president pursued in the central highlands. It would be difficult to overstate the significance of the government's negotiations with mobilized communities. Peasants whose needs and demands had always been ignored in the past were now sending delegates to meet with the president and his cabinet in Lima. Similar negotiations were held at the department level between village leaders and the prefects of Junín and Pasco. The administration's reluctance to use force against invading villages was also an important departure from previous government policies. Villages that had been evicted from the land, at the cost of many lives, under Prado now bargained peacefully with government officials over their latest seizures. For three months after Belaúnde's inauguration, force was rarely used to evict comuneros in the Center. Much of the credit for this restraint must be given to Interior Minister Trelles. A former physi95

The fourth department to which the agrarian-reform bill applied was Puno, an area that had not experienced significant peasant unrest. Puno did have a large peasant federation, however, which was led by two congressional deputies, Róger and Néstor Cáceres (see Edward Dew, Jr., Politics in the Altiplano).

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cian, Trelles was more concerned with the preservation of human life than with the protection of property. When challenged in Congress for not using greater force to protect the haciendas of Pasco, he replied that "no amount of cattle [is] worth a single human life." In short, during the first months of Belaúnde's new regime, the comuneros of Pasco and Junín established themselves as an independent power contender capable of bargaining with the government in certain areas and capable of making their demands felt and known. Their new power was based partially on the sympathetic attitudes of key members of the administration—Vice-President Seoane, Dr. Oscar Trelles, Christian Democratic Agricultural Minister Enrique Torres Llosa, and Belaúnde. However, their improved position was primarily a product of their new voting strength and their capacity for violence and disruption of the system. November—January: Repression in the South. The spread of peasant unrest from the mestizo regions of the Center to the Indian communities of the South evoked a dramatic shift in government policy. The Belaúnde administration's conciliatory position toward the initial mobilization changed to a hard-line defense of law and order, reminiscent of earlier political regimes. Signs of a hardening government position appeared in late October as Belaúnde and his cabinet suggested for the first time that many land seizures were provoked by communist agitators. The government increasingly stressed the illegality of the invasions and de-emphasized the legitimacy of peasant demands. During the last few months of 1963 a large number of alleged outside communist agitators were arrested, as various local officials announced the discovery of subversive plots. The government's new position was warmly endorsed by La Prensa and by Peru's principal landowners' associations, which had been warning of communist subversion from the start. Since the government no longer acknowledged the legitimacy of peasant demands for land, negotiations with invading comunidades were terminated. At that time Belaúnde also removed Interior Minister Trelles from his key cabinet position. The removal followed congressional censure of Trelles for failing to take sufficient action against invading villages. Shortly thereafter the Christian Democrats left Belaúnde's coalition government because of the president's neglect of his land-

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reform bill. The departure of Trelles and Christian Democratic ministers, such as Torres Llosa (Agriculture), eliminated the peasantry's chief supporters from the cabinet. Government policies henceforth became increasingly severe. As more armed force was used to repel invaders, bloodshed and violence reappeared in the sierra. Special guardia assault troops were frequently used in the South. The first peasant massacre took place in October, 1963, in the village of Ongoy (department of Apurímac). Between fifteen and thirty peasants were killed. Arrests and violence continued during Trelles's last month in office and increased considerably after his departure. The subprefect of the province of Anta (Cuzco) expressed the new government policy when he warned villagers to cease invading or face severe police repression. He suggested that the peasant mobilization was the work of outside agitators. This statement contrasted sharply with the sympathetic attitude of local officials in Pasco and Junín several months earlier. The most severe police repressions occurred in the district of San Pablo near the city of Sicuani (Cuzco). On February 4, 1964, nearly eight thousand peasants from the district invaded several haciendas. Police fired on the crowd and killed nineteen people, mostly women. Following the massacre some two hundred village and sindicato leaders in San Pablo were imprisoned on charges of subversion. Police agents produced communist literature and an arms arsenal they allegedly had found in the homes of several peasant leaders. Villagers claimed that the arms had been planted there by the police.96 One week later troops took control of Sicuani. At the same time village and sindicato leaders were arrested throughout the provinces of Anta, Quispicanchis, and Urubamba in the department of Cuzco.97 In March, President Belaúnde suspended the constitutional guarantees of all persons in Cuzco who were suspected of subversive activities. By that time police repression and arrests had fairly well crushed peasant mobilization in Cuzco and "The police refused to let newsmen see the arms for several days after they had announced discovery of the cache. El Sol of Cuzco voiced some scepticism about the charges. 97 El Sol, February 5, 1964, p. 1; February 9, 1964, pp. 1 and 7; February 10, 1964, pp. 1 and 4; and February 11, 1964, pp. 1, 3, 4, and 7.

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the rest of the South. In some provinces, the leaders of every mobilized community were arrested, even where no violence was involved. In total, an estimated three hundred peasants were killed in the South after Interior Minister Trelles was replaced by Juan Languasco. 98 Conclusions It is impossible to know exactly how many communities or peasants were mobilized during the sierra land-recovery movement. Lima's newspapers carried accounts of over 100 invasions, but that figure falls far below the actual number of seizures. In Pasco perhaps 40 of the 53 indigenous communities took part in the movement. Junín probably had an equal number of occupations. And Cuzco alone allegedly had over 140 seizures." Thus, the total number of invasions may well have been between 350 and 400. Some invasions involved several communities, while some villages carried out more than one invasion. A study by the Inter-American Committee for International Development (CIDA) maintains that 300,000 peasants took part in the unrest throughout the sierra.100 The peasant mobilization of the early 1960's was unquestionably one of the largest peasant movements in Latin American history. As we have seen, the communities of the central highlands (Pasco and Junín) increased their political bargaining power considerably during the course of the invasions. In the South, however, rural mobilization only led to severe political repression. Communities in the Center often kept the land they had seized, while those in the South did not.101 What accounts for this difference in government policy toward the two regional movements? Several factors were clearly at work. Some government decisions were made independently by local officials of the Belaúnde administration. Police and administrative officials in the mancha india tended to be more sympathetic to the landowners' interests than 98 See M. Malpica, Biografía, p. 440. There were also a few massacres in the central sierra and the North, but not nearly as many as in the South. "MacLeán, La reforma agraria, p. 134. 100 CIDA, Tenencia, p. 396. 101 Of course, there were some exceptions to this pattern in both the central and southern highlands.

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were officials in the Center. There is a greater tradition of peasant repression in the Indian regions of the South than in the more acculturated central-highland areas. In some instances anti-Indian racism contributed to peasant massacres. The policies of the national government reinforced these local differences. Belaúnde's administration took a much tougher stance against peasant unrest in the South than it had taken in the Center. The time sequence of events was of some importance here. The invasions in Pasco and Junín occurred immediately following Belaúnde's inauguration. Since the new president was riding the crest of his popularity, he could resist right-wing pressures from the Congress, press, and landowning interests. By the time the invasions spread to Cuzco, Belaúnde found it difficult to withstand the oligarchy's demand for a return to law and order. He and Trelles could no longer minimize the extent of the unrest as they had done in the early stages of sierra mobilizations.102 La Prensa and other leading newspapers insisted that the government take stronger action against the invasions. In Congress the opposition coalition prepared to censure Trelles. Belaúnde felt that his land-reform legislation stood no chance of passage unless he responded to the demands for law and order. When Trelles's conciliatory policy (negotiations and government aid to mobilized areas) failed to prevent the spread of unrest to the South, Belaúnde felt compelled to take stronger measures. Finally, it appears that the administration's more repressive policies in the South were also motivated by its perceptions of the two peasant movements. As we have seen, the invasions in the Center were carried out by communities that were fairly well integrated into the nation's social and political systems. Most of the comuneros in Pasco and Junín were registered voters. They generally supported either Belaúnde's Popular Action party or APRA. The demands that they put on the system were fairly limited. Hence, it seemed more prudent to co-opt these peasants than to repress them. In the South the situation was quite different. Fewer villagers could vote, and most were totally excluded from the politi102 During the first months of his presidency, Belaúnde and Interior Minister Trelles frequently insisted that the press was exaggerating the number of actual land invasions. They probably hoped that such assertions might reduce demands for a crackdown on the peasantry.

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cal arena. Consequently, it was difficult for Belaúnde to assess the political attitudes of southern Indian comuneros or the nature of their demands. The peasantry of the mancha india was an unknown quantity in Peruvian politics. What was known, however, was that the peasants had close ties with the revolutionary left in the city of Cuzco. Whereas conciliation seemed like the most prudent policy for Belaúnde in Pasco and Junín, repression seemed advisable in Cuzco. Unlike the peasants of the Center, the southern villagers had no political patrons in APRA or the Popular Action party who might protect them from government repression. Their only urban supporters were revolutionary students and union leaders. The mounting spiral of violence in Cuzco and the attacks on police stations seemed to confirm Belaúnde's fear of a revolutionary situation in the South. The result was an all-out attack on Cuzco's peasant movement and its leaders. The invasions in the Center and the South highlighted the limits of the Peruvian political system in accepting new power contenders into the political decision-making process. While cholo villagers might enter the political arena, traditional Indian comuneros were still excluded.

6. THE GROWTH OF PEASANT FEDERATIONS

Until recently, scholarship on Peruvian history tended to depict the sierra as a region of relative political tranquility. 1 The peasant mobilization of the early 1960's seemed to be an isolated phenomenon, unknown to the highlands since the eighteenth-century Incan revolt of Túpac Amaru. Thus, Jorge Basadre's classic, the tenvolume Historia de la República del Perú, devoted but three lines to the peasant revolts of the 1920's.2 We now know that there were at least five major rural uprisings during that decade. 3 Such works as Basadre's reinforced the stereotype of the serrano as a passive human being. Yet, as Carleton Beals noted some thirtyfive years ago, "Indian revolts have featured all Peru's history ever since the great wars of Manco II, of Sayi Tupac and Titu Cusi. l

The best source of material on Peruvian rural history is Héctor Martínez Arellano et al., Bibliografía indígena andina. The weakness of the existing literature was pointed out by Jean Piel in his article "A propos d'un soulèvement rural péruvien au début du vingtième siècle: Tocroyoc (1921)," Revue d'histoire moderne et contemporaine 14 (October-December 1967): 375-405. 2 Jorge Basadre, Historia de la república del Perú. 8 Piel, "A propos."

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Though invariably put down [brutally] . . . toward the end of the colonial period and during the first years of the Republic, such revolts became more frequent. Citizenship, the Vote, the Legislation System were myths of Indian freedom merely disguising the old slavery and providing new tools of Creole class control. In the [1920s and early 1930s] revolts have again become frequent."4 Soon after the Spanish conquest of Cuzco, Incan leader Manco II initiated the first in a series of uprisings designed to cast out the Spanish and restore the Incan empire of Tahuantisuyo. 5 Such millenarian revolts continued throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, usually at a relatively local level. In 1565 and in 1616, for example, there were important uprisings in the department of Ayacucho. In 1661 a seven-year revolt, inspired by the cry of "Death to the King and to the Pope," broke out among the miners of Laycacota. 6 Perhaps the most notable Quechuan attempt to throw off the yoke of Spanish oppression was the revolt led by Túpac Amaru in 1780. The last great Incan chief and his nephew commanded an army that eventually numbered thirty thousand men. Unlike the more localized rebellions that preceded it, this uprising gained support from Indians throughout the sierra. It was eventually put down after three years of bloody fighting at a cost of eighty thousand lives.7 Yet within thirty years, peasant uprisings against feudal controls broke out once again in Cuzco under the leadership of Quechuan General Mateo Pumacahua. 8 Similar revolts took place throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries—the 1920's being a particularly intense period of rural unrest. Obviously, no count can be made of the many peasant jacqueries that were confined to a particular hacienda or comunidad. They probably number in the hundreds or possibly even thousands. Documented evidence is 4

Carleton Beals, Fire on the Andes, p. 320. Heraclio Bonilla Millones et al., Los movimientos campesinos en el Perú desde fines del siglo XVIII hasta nuestros días, pp. 15-17; see also, Beals, Fire on the Andes. 6 Beals, Fire on the Andes, p. 320. 7 Clements R. Markham, Λ History of Peru, pp. 166-192. 8 Jorge Cornejo Bouroncle, Pumacahua: La revolución del Cuzco de 1814. 5

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available concerning perhaps fifty or more of the larger uprisings. 9 The causes were usually quite similar: excessive taxation of the Indian communities by Spanish authorities; forced free labor on the haciendas and in public-works projects; and usurpation of community lands and waters by white or mestizo gamonales.10 Many of the leaders and participants in rural rebellions through the early nineteenth century still hoped to overthrow Spanish colonialism and restore the Incan empire. However, Túpac Amaru's unsuccessful revolt in 1780 and Pumacahua's defeat in 1815 proved that such a feat would be impossible. Consequently, later peasant uprisings were aimed merely at eliminating the most-oppressive aspects of the white man's rule. There is ample evidence, then, that the mobilization of highland indigenous communities in the early 1960's was actually the latest of a continual series of peasant revolts against external exploitation. In the twentieth century, comuneros carried out most of these uprisings, since the hacienda peons were usually too tightly controlled to resist.11 But, while rural unrest was not new to the Peruvian sierra, the mobilization of comunidades in the 1960's differed significantly from the movements that preceded it. Most of the research that has been done on peasant uprisings through the 1930's suggests that these movements were "prepolitical." They were carried out by "people who [had] not yet found . . . a specific language in which to express their aspirations about the world."12 As we have seen, in the early stages of Indian revolt, uprisings sought to restore the Incan empire, or an idealization of that empire, as it existed before the Spanish conquest. They were movements characterized by "a profound and total rejection of the 9

A folder, published by the League of Hacendados in the 1920's, gives an indication of the extent of rural unrest. In one thirteen-month period a l o n e September, 1921, through October, 1922—the League cites thirty-three revolts, mostly in Cuzco and Puno. See also, Beals, Fire on the Andes, p. 323; Daniel Valcarcel, Rebeliones indígenas; Gabriel Escobar M., "La estructura política rural del departamento de Puno," pp. 58-60; and sources in footnotes 1-8, above. 10 See François Bourricaud, Cambios en Puno; idem, Power and Society in Contemporary Peru, pp. 28-37; and José María Arguedas ( e d . ) , Yawar Fiesta, for descriptions of these conditions. 11 Beals, Fire on the Andes, pp. 322-323. 12 Eric J. Hobsbawm, Primitive Rebels, p. 2.

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present, evil world, and a passionate longing for another and better one."13 Separatist movements erupted in the sierra during the twentieth century. Gabriel Escobar claims that the Indian peasants who staged the Puno rebellion of 1925 wished to prevent or retard their own integration into the national system. "The tendency of those rebellions was not towards the incorporation of the indigenous population into the national political structure, but rather . . . towards nativism and separatism on the basis of a return to communal land tenure." 14 In other parts of the country, peasants participated in uprisings that had more-modern, politically directed goals. Jean Piel argues that the Indians who revolted in Cuzco in the 1920's were not separatists. They were seeking greater integration into the nation's political and economic systems.15 Yet, the goals and organizational structure of those early political movements were still ill-defined. Consequently, Aníbal Quijano maintains that the recent village unrest was the first fully politicized peasant movement in Peruvian history.16 In truth, the peasant mobilization of the early 1960's would only marginally be considered political had it never progressed beyond the stage of land seizures (as described in the previous chapter). Obviously, the invasions themselves had important implications for the national political system, but in and of themselves they would scarcely be called a political act. What distinguished village unrest under Belaúnde from previous rural revolts was the fact that many land seizures were closely associated with the development of peasant unions and federations. Through these federations, the comuneros forged links with urban students, lawyers, trade unions, and other groups interested in helping them articulate their political demands. Through the peasant organizations, indigenous communities might progress from land invasions to a more-permanent political movement. The seizure of haciendas alone could not significant13 14

Ibid., p. 57.

Escobar, "La estructura." 15 Piel, "A Propos," p. 404; see also Bonilla, Los movimientos, pp. 19-21. 16 Aníbal Quijano Obregón, "Contemporary Peasant Movements," in Elites in Latin America, ed. S. M. Lipset and A. Solari, pp. 301-340; also, Quijano, "El movimiento campesino peruano y sus líderes," América Latina 8 (October-December 1965): 43-65.

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ly improve the peasants' lives.17 Nor would it necessarily integrate the comuneros into the national economic and political systems. If villagers wished to articulate their demands to the political system on a regular basis, they would have to form associational interest groups.18 This, then, was the purpose of the peasant federations that were established in conjunction with the invasions. These organizations established the first systematic contacts between sierra peasants and sympathetic urban groups. Peasant unrest could now be channeled into the political system through formalized structures. 19 As late as 1964 the Peruvian Ministry of Labor recognized virtually no campesino unions in the highlands. Of 255 government-recognized agricultural unions, only 5 were in the sierra.20 By that time, however, peasant organizations had sprung up throughout the mobilized regions of the highlands. As Hugo Neira indicated: "Rural [sierran] syndicalism is more than a recuperation of land. . . . It is the vindication of the participation of the peasantry in a system that is closed to them." 21 In each of the three major regions of peasant unrest—Cuzco, Junín, and Pasco—one or more campesino federations arose in close association with the seizure of haciendas. In the succeeding pages I will examine several aspects of these associations. I will be asking 17 Land invasions in Bolivia, for example, have not substantially improved the campesinos' lot. 18 See Gabriel A. Almond and G. Bingham Powell, Comparative Politics, pp. 73-97, for a further discussion of interest articulation in the political development process. 19 An Aprista labor federation called F E N C A P (National Peasant Federation of Peru) existed clandestinely as early as the 1930's. However, although F E N C A P called itself a peasant federation, it was really a union of coastal plantation workers and small farmers, rather than peasants (see Chapter 1, p . 8, and Chapter 3, p. 4 1 , above, for a definition of the term peasant). Many of the early F E N C A P leaders on the plantations had migrated from the sierra. Yet, the organization did not spread back to the highlands until peasant mobilization was underway in the 1960's. See Julio Cotler and José Matos Mar, Proyecto de estudio de las organizaciones campesinas en el Perú, pp. 34-35; Julio Cotler and F. Portocarrero, Organizaciones campesinas del Perú, pp. 8-18; José Matos Mar, Los movimientos y organizaciones campesinas en el valle de Chancay; and L. Larson, "Labor, Social Change and Politics in Peru," p p . 224-230. 20 Cotler and Portocarrero, Organizaciones campesinas, p. 8. 21 Hugo Neira Samañez, Los Andes, p. 201.

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how the most-important peasant groups were formed. Did the leadership consist primarily of comuneros or outsiders? What was the nature and the range of their explicit and implicit demands? I will also consider what means were used to seek group goals and what alliances, if any, were formed with nonpeasant groups. How large a following did the federations have, and what influence did the leadership have over the groups' members? Finally, I will be concerned with the flexibility shown by the peasant groups, their success in achieving associational goals, and their durability as organizations. 22 Peasant Federations in the Valley of La Convención In the preceding chapter we observed that the original impetus for land seizures in the southern highlands came from the frontier region of La Convención. That remote Cuzco valley also produced Peru's first important peasant federation. 23 As we have seen, most of the hacienda peons in the valley had migrated to the montaña from highland communities during the 1930's and 1940's. In time their dissatisfaction with tenancy conditions—particularly their labor obligations to the hacendados—led them to organize sindicatos on several estates. After several unsuccessful attempts at expanding their movement, the colonos on eight haciendas joined together in 1958 to form the Provincial Peasant Federation of La Convención and Lares (FPCC). 2 4 Two years later the Federation organized a highly effective strike aimed at eliminating labor obligations and 22

See Henry A. Landsberger, "A Framework for the Study of Peasant Movements," for a discussion of alternative frameworks for studying peasant movements. 23 There had been some scattered attempts in the 1940's and 1950's to organize sierran comuneros. When General Odría's dictatorship ended in 1956, the National Campesino Federation of Peru ( F E N C A P ) began to expand its activities. Because the copper workers of Pasco and Junín were led by Aprista unions, F E N C A P (itself closely associated with the APRA party) decided to organize village sindicatos in those departments. However, for the most part, FENCAP activities in the sierra were not significant. The procommunist Peruvian Peasant Federation ( C C P ) also tried to organize certain highland communities during that period and had even less success. 24 The information on La Conventión's F P C C is based largely on Wesley W. Craig, Jr., From Hacienda to Community; and Eric J. Hobsbawm, "Problèmes agraires à La Convención ( P é r o u ) , " in Les problèmes agraires des Amériques Latines.

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replacing them with cash payments of rent. By that time the Federation encompassed sixty hacienda sindicatos with a total membership of some ten thousand peasants. The FPCC's early leadership came entirely from the ranks of the valley's hacienda tenants. It was probably one of the few large peasant unions in Latin America to be organized totally from below. However, the valley's campesinos soon formed alliances with urban groups that significantly influenced their movement's development. The peasants made their first outside contacts during the late 1950's, shortly after the FPCC was organized. Federation leaders contacted sympathetic lawyers in the capital city of Cuzco, who helped the tenants draft protests over tenancy conditions. Radical lawyers also advised the campesinos on strategies and organizational methods and filed briefs with the departmental and national governments. The Peasant Federation of La Convención also solicited support from Cuzco's urban labor federation (FTC)—a union of textile workers, railroad employees, and construction workers in the department capital. These urban unions furnished additional legal and organizational assistance. Since most of the FTC leadership supported Peru's Communist party, it is likely that the union organizers introduced peasant leaders to a Marxist viewpoint. However, it appears that urban leaders did not influence the goals or methods of the Peasant Federation during its early years. Direction of the FPCC remained in peasant hands. The first outside organizer to exert a significant influence on the valley's peasant movement was Hugo Blanco.25 Shortly after he became a La Convención allegado, Blanco established a broad base of support within the FPCC. Between 1960 and 1962 he rose from leadership of a single hacienda sindicato to a major office in the Provincial Federation. In time he convinced many of the valley's peasants to radicalize their demands, and he organized armed seizures of hacienda territory. 26 25

See Chapter 5, above, for a description of Blanco's activities in La Convención. 26 Blanco outlined his strategy of peasant mobilization in the Trotskyist journal Obrero y Campesino ( L i m a ) , 3, no. 6 (August 1963): 3. Numerous articles by or about Blanco and his theories on rural insurrection can be found in Inter-Continental Press (New York).

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It is not easy to assess the impact of outside assistance on peasant mobilization in La Convención. Peru's leading newspapers often suggested that urban organizers from Cuzco led the FPCC into a more-radical position than the peasants really wanted. In fact, there were moderates and radicals among the campesinos and among the Federation's urban allies. The original tenants of the valley, who had been granted fairly large plots of land, tended to favor limited demands and strike strategies. They had been instrumental in founding the Provincial Peasant Federation and in organizing the 1960 valleywide strike. For the most part, these men rejected land seizures or the use of arms. Their moderate position was strongly endorsed by the urban communist organizers representing the Cuzco Labor Federation ( F T C ) . On the other hand, La Conventión's allegados, who sublet very small plots of land in the valley from the older tenants, were disposed toward more-radical demands. Their economic position was worse than that of the established colonos, and, consequently, they tended to favor Blanco's more-radical strategies. Conflicts between urban communist organizers (primarily from the FTC) and urban Trotskyists (followers of Blanco and the Leftist Revolutionary Front—FIR) were exacerbated by longstanding animosities between those two ideological camps. 27 When Blanco was arrested early in 1963, local leadership was able to continue the tenants' strike. During the next two years, the peasants took effective control of most of the valley's haciendas and won almost all their demands. It does not seem that Blanco's departure caused the campesinos to moderate their Federation's position. Six years after Blanco's arrest, the FPCC remained one of Peru's most dynamic and militant peasant organizations. 28 It is 27 See Craig, From Hacienda to Community, pp. 42-44. For a more-general discussion of splits between communist and Trotskyist labor unions in Peru, see James L. Payne, Labor and Politics in Peru. 28 In his studies of La Convención, Wesley Craig suggests that, after Blanco's departure, the Peasant Federation returned to more-conservative (or moderate) leadership. In 1969, I visited the valley for a brief period. During that time I witnessed a large peasant demonstration on May Day and interviewed FPCC leaders. I found the leadership to be quite militant. Several other outside observers who visited the area at that time told me that they also disagreed with Craig's observation on this point.

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a mark of the Federation's effectiveness that La Convención was the first region in Peru to be covered by a government land-reform program. The Movement Spreads to the Cuzco Sierra As we have seen, many of the peasants in La Convención maintained contacts with the highland villages from which they had originally migrated (see Chapter 5). When they returned home to visit relatives, they carried news of their successful challenge to the power of their valley's hacendados. Since many of the indigenous communities in Cuzco's sierra were involved in longstanding land disputes with neighboring latifundios, village leaders were quite interested in following La Conventión's example. In 19621963 a number of comunidades in the provinces of Anta, Canchis, Quispicanchis, and Urubamba formed village sindicatos. Students from the University of Cuzco (many of whom were the sons of comuneros) were also inspired by events in La Convención and helped organize peasant unions around the department capital. Once again the FTC sent organizers to help the peasants. But, as in La Convención, the initial impetus for unionization in the comunidades came from the peasantry. It is important to note that most of the peasant sindicatos in the sierra were organized in indigenous communities. Fewer hacienda peons were able to challenge their hacendados. Unlike their counterparts in the montaña, highland colonos were generally too downtrodden and too tightly controlled by the hacendados to be effectively organized.29 Consequently, most peasant sindicatos in the sierra had different objectives than had the La Convención unions. They were essentially interest groups representing small landowners, rather than bargaining agents between tenants and landlords. Village sindicatos had two purposes. First, they represented the community in its disputes with local hacendados (peasant unions were usually organized in villages that had previously been fight29

A limited number of unions were formed on highland haciendas. Many were led by urban organizers from the Christian Democratic labor movement— MOSICP. There were also some instances of spontaneous mobilization of hacienda peons. See Héctor Martínez Arellano, "La Hacienda Capana," Perú Indígena 10, nos. 24-25 ( 1 9 6 3 ) : 37-64. See also pp. 89-99 and pp. 102-111, above.

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ing nearby latifundios for land or water). Second, they articulated the villagers' demands to local government officials and to the national government, particularly the Ministry of Labor and Indigenous Affairs. The leaders of individual village unions soon realized that these functions, particularly the articulation of interests to the state, could be carried out more effectively through regional federations of community sindicatos. However, these comunidad officials lacked the political sophistication and the organizational ability needed to form provincial or departmental federations. Hence, urban sympathizers took the lead in this area. In 1961 leaders of the Provisional Peasant Federation of La Convención and Lares (FPCC), the Cuzco Labor Federation ( F T C ) , and the Cuzco University Federation (FUC) jointly organized the Departmental Peasant Confederation of Cuzco ( C D C C ) . The new movement claimed to represent over two hundred village sindicatos.30 Thus, when President Belaúnde's inauguration (in 1963) precipitated a wave of invasions in Cuzco, the CDCC was in a position to organize and channel peasant unrest. The Federation's influence was particularly great in the provinces of Canchis and Quispicanchis to the south of the departmental capital, since urban organizers could reach communities in those regions from the department's principal road. Hugo Blanco's brother-in-law, Vládimir Valer, played an important role in union activities, as did many radical students from the University of Cuzco. In December, 1963, the CDCC, FTC, and FUC organized a mass rally of twenty thousand persons in the city of Cuzco. A demonstration of this size was quite unusual even for that relatively radical city and may have been instrumental in the release of several imprisoned peasant leaders later that week.31 However, in 1964 the Peasant Federation's influence began to wane. 32 From the time of the organization's inception its urban leaders were sharply divided by ideological differences. Orthodox 30

See Neira, Los Andes, pp. 202-206. Ibid., p. 97. 32 This section is based on interviews with leaders of the La Convención Peasant Federation, the FUC, and the Christian Democratic peasant union (MOSICP), as well as with local journalists and other neutral observers. Interviews were carried out in April-May, 1969. 31

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communists, Trotskyists, Fidelistas, and Maoists vied for control of the movement. Ultimately, Pekinista (Maoist) university students from the FUC assumed most positions of importance in the Federation. Many FTC communists, as well as Trotskyists allied with Blanco and Vládimir Valer, departed, depriving the CDCC of some of its most-talented organizers. Differences also arose between urban-based leaders and less ideologically oriented village spokesmen. Most of the Cuzco comuneros who joined the federation did so for fairly specific purposes: they wished to reclaim village lands from neighboring haciendas and secure greater government assistance in education and agricultural technology. In the eyes of many of the CDCC's urban allies, such goals were narrow and bourgeois. They might be useful as an initial motivating force for rural mobilization, but the campesino's short-range interests ultimately had to be expanded to include broader revolutionary objectives.33 This was no new problem. Soon after Hugo Blanco first joined the La Convención peasants, he recognized that they did not share his long-range objectives. Yet, Blanco tried to cope with the problem by constantly adjusting his program to the campesinos' needs. 34 In the sierra, CDCC leaders failed to make similar adjustments. Consequently, many comuneros lost confidence in their urban allies. Several village leaders whom I interviewed told me they felt betrayed by those university activists who supported the comunidad's land claims but were not there to face the guns of the police when seizures actually took place. While such internal divisions as these undoubtedly weakened the CDCC, police repression was probably the most-important factor contributing to the demise of the Federation. Many village leaders in Cuzco who had organized a sindicato in their comunidad were imprisoned for varying lengths of time. Some of them were still in jail when this study was conducted, six years after the initial 33 However, communist leaders from the F T C shared the peasants' moderate goals and rejected the revolutionary objectives of the Trotskyists and Maoists. 34 In his August, 1963, article in Obrero y Campesino and in an interview with me at El Frontón Penitentiary, Blanco insisted that the revolutionary leader must never lose contact with the wishes of his constituency. Like Mao Tse-tung, Blanco recognized that, in the early stages of their activity, revolutionaries must b e led by the peasants, not vice versa.

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mobilization. Urban-based leaders were also jailed. Ultimately the Federation was not entrenched strongly enough to withstand such repression. By 1966, the CDCC was no longer a significant political force in Cuzco, nor did it exercise much influence over the region's peasantry. When this study was conducted, only two or three provincial federations in the department were still functioning. The Peasant Federation of La Conventión—Cuzco's first important peasant organization—retained the loyalty of the valley's campesinos. Its leaders claimed to represent some 110 hacienda sindicatos in the province.35 About half of the organized latifundios had been expropriated (i.e., were controlled by the former tenants). Although many of the tenants' goals had been attained, the Federation continued to provide its members with legal aid and other essential services. Furthermore, the FPCC was still among the most-militant peasant organizations in the nation. In 1969, I witnessed a May Day demonstration in the valley in which three thousand campesinos participated. The only other functioning peasant federation in Cuzco was in the province of Urubamba. However, its leaders conceded that they drew their support from a few haciendas and had little strength in the comunidades.36 The provincial federations in La Convención and Urubamba were officially associated with the Departmental Confederation (the CDCC). However, leaders of the two provincial organizations operated independently of the CDCC and did not consider it to be a viable group. Furthermore, they rejected the Maoist orientation of the university students who had assumed leadership in the department headquarters. Since neither of these two Provincial Federations represented sierra comunidades, it is fair to say that government repression and internal conflicts had effectively destroyed the formal organization of the highland villages.

35 Interviews with several FPCC secretaries in May, 1969. It is possible that this figure is somewhat exaggerated. However, since officials were quite candid about certain weaknesses in their organization, I have reason to believe their claims. 36 Interview with the secretary general of the Provincial Federation of Urubamba, May, 1969.

136 The Departmental

The Growth of Peasant Federations Federation of Pasco

Communities

Not long after a peasant federation was founded in La Convención, a similar association was organized in the department of Pasco. Villagers in that region were actually better equipped to develop their own comunidad associations than Cuzco's peasants were. They tended to be more literate, acculturated, and politically sophisticated than were the southern comuneros. Since Pasco is a small department with a comparatively good road system, villagers usually had considerable contacts with the modern urban sector. Every town that I visited in the region was only a few hours removed by bus or truck from the department capital. In most of the villages, there were some comuneros who had worked in the nearby copper and lead mines. Through the Aprista miners' union, they had become acquainted with the organizational methods and structures needed to form a campesino federation. These men were often leaders in the early attempts at intervillage organization. 37 Thus, when Pasco's comuneros founded a peasant federation in the early 1960's, they were able to handle many of the upper leadership positions, which inevitably were filled by outsiders in Cuzco. Yet, in spite of their greater sophistication, Pasco's comunidad officials were unequal to the task of maintaining a regionalinterest association. From the start they relied heavily on the organizational abilities of one man, Genaro Ledesma Izquieta, an urban lawyer and teacher. He provided the skills that even Pasco's comuneros lacked.38 Unlike La Convención—where peasant organizers were able to carry on after Hugo Blanco's arrest—the Pasco federation became almost totally dependent on Ledesma's leadership. Genaro Ledesma had been the major spokesman for the Cerro de Pasco miners during their bitter strikes of 1958-1959. Shortly before Pasco's first land invasion (in 1959), he tried to link the miners' grievances with the land disputes their home villages 37 See James Petras and Maurice Zeitlin, "Miners and Agrarian Radicalism," American Sociological Review 32 (August 1967): 578-586, for a discussion of the influence of miners on peasant mobilization in Chile. 38 See Chapter 5, above, for a more-detailed discussion of Ledesma's role in Pasco.

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were having with the Cerro Corporation. Shortly thereafter, several comunidades seized hacienda lands near the city of Cerro (at the same time that peasants were mobilizing in the La Convención valley). Ledesma, who had just been appointed mayor of Cerro, supported the villagers' claims and restrained the local police. Since he had established contacts with many community leaders through the miners' union, the mayor was able to organize a number of villages into the Departmental Federation of Pasco Communities. In time the Federation claimed to represent some fifty indigenous communities, principally in the province of Pasco. A closely allied organization, the Community Federation of Champihuaranga, represented some twenty-five additional villages in the neighboring province of Daniel Carrión.39 Although Ledesma was officially an Aprista at the time of his appointment as mayor, he soon revealed a radical political orientation that was basically Fidelista. But, like Hugo Blanco, Ledesma realized that his followers in the comunidades did not share his long-term ideological perspective and were concerned with narrower and more-immediate goals. In fact, since they were more integrated into the national culture, Pasco's comuneros were less inclined toward radicalism than were the peasants in Cuzco. Consequently, Ledesma moved the Federation along very moderate lines. For the most part the organization merely provided legal and technical assistance to villages that were engaged in land disputes with neighboring latifundios. Thus, despite Ledesma's leftist ideology, the Pasco Federation was relatively apolitical.40 This prevented divisions between urban leadership and the village rank and file like those that plagued the Cuzco Peasant Federation. In spite of his moderation, Genaro Ledesma was removed from 39 Interviews with Genaro Ledesma and Juan Abregú—a Cerro de Pasco lawyer—in June, 1969. In fact, far fewer than seventy-five communities actually actively participated in the movement. 40 At the time that Ledesma organized the Pasco Federation, Manuel Prado was president of the Republic. Since Prado had close ties with the nation's landed elite, Ledesma felt that it was pointless to develop the peasant union into an interest-articulating pressure group; the comunidades were unlikely to get a serious hearing from the national government anyway. Had Ledesma continued to direct the Federation under the Belaúnde administration, he might have acted differently (interview with Ledesma, June, 1969).

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office (as mayor of Cerro) by President Prado late in 1960. During the succeeding three years, he was imprisoned on three different occasions—twice by the Prado administration and once by the military junta that took office in 1963. While serving his last prison sentence, he was elected to the national Congress as a candidate for the newly formed Workers' and Peasants' Front, a left-of-center political party that ran candidates in Junín and Pasco. Thereafter, he was released from El Frontón Penitentiary. Ledesma's continued absence from Pasco—first because of his imprisonment and later because he was serving in Congress—seriously weakened the Pasco Federation of Communities. Other urban leaders were not available to assist the comuneros. Unlike Cuzco, Cerro de Pasco had no university that could provide union organizers.41 Furthermore, the city's principal labor union (the miners' union) did not ally as closely with the Peasant Federation as the FTC (Cuzco's urban union) did in Cuzco. Consequently, during Ledesma's absence, leadership responsibilities fell back on the shoulders of village officials. They ultimately proved unequal to the task. For the most part, they lacked the capability and the time needed to coordinate activities between comunidades. Village leaders also were divided politically. Some supported APRA, traditionally the department's strongest party; others favored Belaúnde's Acción Popular; and still others preferred the leftist National Liberation Front that Ledesma founded. Such divisions were less acrimonious than the splits between Maoists, Fidelistas, communists, and Trotskyists in Cuzco's CDCC. Nonetheless, they did diminish intervillage cooperation. Finally, community leaders often suspected the motives of officials in other towns. One personero (village representative) whom I interviewed felt that the general secretary of the Departmental Federation—a man from another comunidad—was using the organization to further the interests of his own community and had little concern for the other members of the union. Such attitudes reduced intervillage cooperation and weakened the Federation's effectiveness. The Pasco Community Federation never mobilized the comuneros of that region as extensively as the CDCC did in Cuzco. 41 A small engineering and mining college was formed several years later, but its students were never very political.

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There were no mass demonstrations or rallies. Some of the member communities were scarcely connected with the Federation; the leader of one community that officially belonged to the association told me that he knew nothing about the group's leaders or activities. In large part the Pasco Federation did not penetrate the department's villages as deeply as the CDCC did, simply because its constituents were not as alienated or as dissatisfied with their situation as the Cuzco comuneros were. 42 Moreover, the Pasco group lacked a talented and dedicated student or labor-union movement to sustain peasant activities. By 1968, the Federation, like the CDCC, was no longer an effective organization. The contrasting causes of the demise of the two peasant unions were ironic. In the South the movement died because of a combination of overly ideological outside leadership and heavy government repression. In Pasco a dearth of outside leadership and a government policy of cooptation undermined the community federation. The Department

Federation of Junín Communities

The indigenous communities of Junín were more successful than either Cuzco's or Pasco's comunidades in creating a successful and ongoing peasant interest association. Several campesino groups were organized there, the most important of which was the Department Federation of Junín Communities (FEDECOJ) founded in 1958.43 Like the peasants of Pasco, Junín's villagers had been relatively well integrated into the nation's economic and social systems for a number of years prior to the land-seizure movement. This was particularly true in the Mantaro Valley (near the department capital of Huancayo) and in the area surrounding La Oroya, where most comuneros had extensive contacts with the urban sector. Elias Tácunan, a villager from Huasicancha, was a highly acculturated Junín campesino who became politically active in APRA 42

See Chapters 7 and 8, below. This section is based on interviews with Dr. Jesús Véliz Lizárraga, defense secretary of F E D E C O J ; Manuel Canchucaja, secretary general of F E D E C O J ; and Moisés Mesa Vilchas, secretary general of the Movimiento Comunal del Centro. The interviews were conducted in June and July of 1969; see also F. LaMond Tullis, Lord and Peasant in Peru, pp. 61-66 and 198-199, for further information on the peasant organizations of Junín. 43

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during his youth. During the 1930's the party started to recruit the Pasco miners and the La Oroya refinery workers into Aprista unions. At that time, Tácunan became a rural organizer for the party. In 1945 he took a job at the Cerro Corporation refineries and shortly thereafter founded the Central Regional Federation of Mine Workers, an APRA-affiliated union. He also maintained contacts with village leaders, hoping to eventually return to rural organizing. The Mine Workers' Union and the APRA party were both forced underground during the dictatorship of General Manuel Odría (1948-1956) .44 When Odría stepped down and the party was able to function freely once again, Tácunan decided that neither APRA nor its Peasant Federation (FENCAP) were really interested in organizing the highland comuneros. Consequently, he left the party in 1958 to organize the Department Federation of Junín Communities. Essentially FEDECOJ brought together village officials to discuss mutual problems. It channeled comunidad demands to the departmental and national governments and thereby served as an associational interest group for its constituents. The organization started with a number of advantages. Since Tácunan had been a leader of the Federation of Mine Workers, FEDECOJ could call on the urban union for financial and organizational aid. The Community Federation also received important help from Jesús Véliz Lizárraga, a sociologist from the University of San Marcos, who lived in the city of Huancayo. Yet, while Tácunan drew upon these urban sources, he kept leadership firmly in the hands of comuneros. Even Professor Lizárraga, FEDECOJ's secretary of defense, was from an indigenous community in the Mantaro Valley.45 Since Tácunan's background was in APRA, not " D u r i n g this period Tácunan served a two-year sentence at Peru's most notorious penitentiary, El Frontón. Thus, the most-outstanding peasant union leaders in Cuzco, Pasco, and Junín—Hugo Blanco, Genaro Ledesma, and Elias Tácunan—were all illustrious graduates of this institution. Little more needs to be said about the repression of peasant unions throughout Peru's modern history. 45 Of course, Genaro Ledesma also established a link between the Pasco Community Federation and the Cerro de Pasco miners, and in Cuzco the F T C gave aid to the CDCC. But, in the first case, little came of the relationship and, in the second instance, there was an element of manipulation by the F T C .

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in the revolutionary left, FEDECOJ was not hounded by police as was the Peasant Federation of Cuzco (and, to a lesser extent, the Pasco Federation). 46 Finally, many communities in Junín, particularly in the Mantaro Valley, had previously cooperated with each other on local projects. There was a greater bond between villages than in either Pasco or Cuzco. Eventually some 150 comunidades joined the Department Federation. 47 While Tácunan and Lizárraga were both fairly militant in their pursuit of campesino rights, they were not revolutionaries. In fact, they believed in the efficacy of working within the system. The Junín Federation's peasant leaders were committed to promoting rural education that would enable the campesino to act more effectively in the political arena. In 1959, Lizárraga helped establish the Universidad Comunal del Centro (Communal University of the Central Highlands). 48 FEDECOJ also founded six secondary schools in leading indigenous communities. Like the university, these schools were designed to produce more-capable village leaders. Some of Tácunan's other activities were more directly political. In 1962 FEDECOJ joined with Genaro Ledesma's Pasco Federation and with dissident labor leaders in La Oroya's copper refineries to form a new political party—the Workers' and Peasants' Front (Frente de Obreros y Campesinos). The leaders of all the groups behind the Front had once been APRA adherents, but they had become disillusioned with the party's growing conservatism and its lack of interest in the peasantry. The purpose of the new party was to challenge APRA's electoral dominance in the central highlands and to seek a direct voice for the central comunidades in local and national politics. The Front ran candidates for local office in 1962 and put up three men for the national Congress, including

46 Ledesma had also been in APRA, but by 1962 he was clearly identifying with the revolutionary left. 47 Lizárraga claimed that 450 of Junín's 500 indigenous communities were members, but this is obviously greatly exaggerated. Tullis, Lord and Peasant, p. 199, suggests that 30 percent of the villages joined. 48 Three years later the national government turned the school into a stateadministered university (Universidad del Centro) and took administrative control away from Lizárraga.

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Lizárraga in Junín and Ledesma in Pasco. Only Ledesma (then in El Frontón prison) was victorious. The electoral alliance was not long-lasting. Shortly after being released from jail, Ledesma, who stood far to the left of Tácunan and Lizárraga, quit the Frente de Obreros y Campesinos to form the National Liberation Front (Frente de Liberación Nacional). Furthermore, the village leaders in FEDECOJ felt that the La Oroya union dissidents were too radical. Consequently, those two groups also divided. The party that emerged from this split was known as the Movimiento Comunal del Centro (the Central Highlands Communal Movement). It allied itself with Fernando Belaúnde's Acción Popular in the 1963 and 1966 elections, feeling that Belaúnde and his supporters represented the best hope for the central comunidades. Although it was very closely allied with FEDECOJ, the Movimiento Comunal retained a separate status and somewhat different leadership. Two important differences are worth noting. First, as we have seen, FEDECOJ was an association of village leaders. The Movimiento, on the other hand, sought members among all comuneros, including those who had moved to urban centers or who were attending universities. Second, while the Movimiento Comunal shared FEDECOJ's interest in educational development and interest articulation, it wished to go beyond pressure-group status to become an independent political party representing comuneros and allied urban workers (presumably of rural origin). The incipient party was particularly interested in recruiting support from young professionals and students who were born in comunidades. It looked to the graduates of the Universidad del Centro (in Huancayo) for political and socioeconomic leadership. Since the untimely death of Elias Tácunan in 1967, each of the two comunidad organizations have been headed by different persons. The differences in style, membership, and objectives of FEDECOJ and the Movimiento Comunal were epitomized by the two men who headed those organizations when this study was conducted in 1969. Manuel Canchucaja, the secretary general of FEDECOJ, was the personero (official representative) of the village of Sicaya. His rough hands and face marked him clearly as a man who tilled the soil. His speech and mannerisms indicated that his education had been limited. In some ways Canchucaja was sur-

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prisingly politicized. In the course of my interview, he espoused a fairly nationalistic, anti-yanqui political ideology. For example, he strongly supported the military government's recent nationalization of the International Petroleum Corporation (a subsidiary of Standard Oil) and favored proposals for Peruvian recognition of Soviet-bloc nations. 49 To be sure, he was one of the few comuneros whom I encountered who was concerned with such issues. Yet, despite his relative political sophistication, Canchucaja had very limited notions as to how the Junín peasantry could increase its political influence. Like many village leaders whom I interviewed, the FEDECOJ secretary general spoke merely of new peasant congresses and additional manifestoes. The secretary general of the Movimiento Comunal del Centro, Moisés Mesa Vilchas, was also born in a Junín community. His general political philosophy was similar to Canchucaja's.50 However, Mesa Vilchas differed from his older comrade in age, education, and temperament. The Movimiento's secretary was perhaps thirty to thirty-five years of age, some twenty years younger than Canchucaja. Although he was a comunero, he had been educated in Mexico and the United States and had received a degree in forestry engineering. Moreover, his political ideas reflected his youth and education. Thus, he felt that comuneros must take stronger measures than those Canchucaja proposed if they were to be effective. Another Movimiento leader cited the Movimiento Comunal's threat in 1964 to march on Lima and block major roads in the central sierra if Peru's Congress terminated funds for President Belaúnde's community-development program, Cooperación Popular. Shortly thereafter, Congress decided to refund the program. 51 This informant felt that the Movimiento might use similar tactics to pressure the national government for other rural reforms. He spoke of organizing a forty-eight-hour strike in which the comunidades of Pasco

49

These questions were controversial issues in Peruvian politics at that time. Both men were more militant than were F E N C A P leaders in Junín, but they disavowed radical or violent tactics. Both expressed their disapproval of communist and Maoist peasant organizers. 51 My informant felt that the threatened demonstrations had dissuaded the Congress from terminating funds. I was unable to ascertain if this was so. In any event, Congress ended Belaúnde's Cooperación Popular in subsequent years. 50

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and Junín would stop deliveries of food from the central sierra to the cities.52 The Movement's most ambitious long-range goal was the creation of a nationwide campesino political party. As we have seen, a Workers' and Peasants' Front did run independent candidates in 1962 in the central sierra. In subsequent elections, however, the Movimiento Comunal merely backed President Belaúnde and his Acción Popular party. As Belaúnde's administration drew toward its close, Elias Tácunan and his supporters evaluated their strategy for the 1968 national elections (presidential and congressional). They resolved at that time to extend the Movimiento Comunal del Centro out of the central highlands into a nationwide party that would run candidates for the presidency, Congress, and local office. Their principal ally in this venture was to be the National Front of Workers and Peasants, a splinter political party that had developed considerable strength in the southern department of Puno. The National Front (something of a misnomer since it existed only in Puno) was headed by two deputies in the national Congress, Róger and Néstor Cáceres. 53 The Cáceres brothers were progressive politicians who had broken with the Christian Democratic party to form their own peasant federation (the Peasant Syndical Front) and political party (the National Front) in Puno. Although they came from a very wealthy and powerful family (which controlled the major radio station and newspaper in the city of Juliaca), the Cácereses were strongly attuned to peasant needs. Thus, they were the only members of Congress ever to submit a bill calling for universal suffrage.54 The Peasant Syndical Front, which was the principal source of support for the party, claimed "Several Movimiento leaders claimed that the indigenous communities of Pasco and Junín were already sufficiently organized to carry out such a strike at any time. Other neutral observers whom I interviewed were more sceptical, though they felt that a strike like this might eventually be feasible. 53 See Edward Dew, Jr., Politics in the Altiplano, for a more extensive study of the Cáceres movement and party. 64 See ibid.; also, L. Larson, "Labor," p. 241. Some critics of the Cácereses felt that they were more concerned with furthering the regional goals of Juliaca and Puno than peasant goals. Others felt that the Cácereses' main interest was their own political advancement. Yet, whatever the brothers' goals, even critics admitted that the party had a progressive program for the Peruvian peasantry.

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to have 200,000 members throughout Puno. Impartial observers felt that 30,000 to 35,000 was a more accurate figure.55 An alliance between the Movimiento Comunal del Centro and the Cácereses' National Front would have had a good base of support in three departments: Puno, Pasco, and Junín. Its leaders also had fairly extensive contacts in Ancash, Huancavelica, and Huánuco. Early in 1967, Tácunan called a congress of allied peasant organizations from five central departments. The purpose was to establish a grass-roots network for the projected political party. 56 Some 630 delegates attended, representing a broad spectrum of political orientations. However, APRA groups (such as FENCAP) and very radical federations (such as the Peruvian Peasant Federation—the CCP) were not invited, since the Movimiento's leaders felt that these two sectors lacked both a following among the sierra communities and a sincere interest in the peasantry. 57 Tácunan's plans for establishing a nationwide peasant party were extremely significant. Such a party would have been the first of its kind in Peru and probably the first ever established in Latin America. It might have permitted the indigenous communities of the highlands to establish themselves as an independent force in local and national politics. Because most of the party's local leaders were to be comunidad officials with well-established ties to their constituents, the movement would have started with a base of some 65,000 supporters in Junín and Puno. Yet its plans were never realized. Tácunan died shortly before his comunero congress convened in 1967. His death was a severe blow to the movement. More important, in October, 1968, the Peruvian military seized power, cancelled the national elections, and ended any immediate plans the new party's leaders might have had. How might such a peasant party have fared had the military not taken control of the nation? 58 The movement would undoubtedly have encountered serious difficulties. Mesa Vilchas maintained that 55

See L. Larson, "Labor." The departments were Ancash, Huancavelica, Huánuco, Junín, and Pasco. 57 They were certainly right in the first respect. Neither F E N C A P nor CCP had support outside of a few pro-FENCAP villages in Junín. 58 Eventually the military junta, which still governs Peru, plans to restore civilian government. Consequently, a party may still be created. Mesa Vilchas indicated that plans for a comunero party are still alive. 56

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the Movimiento Comunal and its allies could anticipate considerable support from the thousands of rural migrants who had settled in the shantytowns surrounding Peru's major coastal cities. Without some urban support, a peasant party could not exercise significant influence in a national election. Yet, as Rodolfo Stavenhagen has pointed out, there are many conflicts of interest between the Latin American peasantry and the urban proletariat (or lumpenproletariat) that make lasting political alliances very difficult.59 Furthermore, APRA's entrenched position within the Peruvian urban working class created a formidable obstacle to the Movimiento's political opportunities. In spite of these difficulties, a political alliance between the Movimiento Comunal del Centro and the National Front of Peasants and Workers in Puno might well develop into a significant political movement. Because of the close-knit structure of Peru's comunidades, shantytown dwellers maintain closer ties with their home villages than other Latin American rural migrants normally do. In the barriadas of Lima, many residents belong to fraternal organizations of fellow migrants from a particular area of the countryside.60 Consequently, despite Stavenhagen's cautions, a village-based party could probably draw some barriada support. In 1958 few political analysts would have dared predict that the next president (Belaúnde) would receive his margin of electoral victory from the village peasantry. As the number of literate and politically conscious comuneros grows each year, a strong peasant-based party may yet emerge when the military restores civilian government to Peru.61 While waiting for the day when they can present their electoral candidates, the leaders of the Movimiento Comunal (and of FEDECOJ) have been pursuing objectives and goals that have helped keep their organizations alive and viable. When the military 59 Rodolfo Stavenhagen, "Seven Erroneous Theses about Latin America," in Latin America: Reform or Revolution? ed. James Petras and Maurice Zeitlin. 60 See William Mangin, "The Role of Regional Associations in the Adaptation of Rural Migrants to Cities in Peru," in Contemporary Cultures and Societies of Latin America, ed. D. Heath and R. Adams. 61 The military gained strong support from the comuneros after its agrarianreform law was promulgated in June, 1969. If the bill is effectively applied and if the military runs its own candidates in the next elections, the Movimiento's party would face a serious challenge for peasant support.

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junta announced its plans (in June, 1969) for an extensive agrarian-reform program, leaders of the Movement and FEDECOJ felt that their organizations were ideally suited to transmit comunidad demands to the state during the redistribution of lands in the central highlands. Since the military placed several political allies of the Movimiento in key administrative positions in the agrarian-reform bureaucracy, the Peasant Federation has had an opportunity to work closely with the national government in this area.62 FEDECOJ and the Movimiento have also benefited politically from the animosities between the military and FENCAP, their principal opponent for political support in Junín.63 Thus, as of 1969—five years after the major rural mobilization in the sierra—the two federations founded in Junín by Elias Tácunan were among the most viable and effective peasant organizations that I encountered in my study.64 Véliz Lizárraga, secretary of defense of FEDECOJ, admitted that his organization's strength had declined somewhat since Tácunan's death in 1967. However, comunidad leaders like Manuel Canchucaja were doing an impressive job of maintaining intervillage cooperation. The prospects for the Movimiento Comunal del Centro seemed even more promising with the influx of trained well-educated comunidad youth into leadership positions. Conclusions This brief examination of village federations in three sierra departments illustrates the tremendous difficulties that comuneros faced in organizing effective and durable associational interest groups. Only two of the regions that I studied—Junín and the valley of La Convención—had peasant federations that lasted beyond 62 Edgardo Seoane, former vice-president under Belaúnde and leader of the radical wing of the Acción Popular party, was placed at the head of the Agricultural Development Bank by the military. Seoane was on good terms with the Movimiento Comunal. 63 Interestingly, when I interviewed one leader of FENCAP in the central sierra, he told me that the military's agrarian-reform law was part of a communist plot. He and his associates at FENCAP were the only peasant federation leaders that I interviewed who were not highly enthusiastic about the new law. 64 Only the La Convención Federation was as dynamic at that time.

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the initial period of rural mobilization. In the remainder of Cuzco and in Pasco, intervillage organizations existed in name only. Most of the peasant federations that were organized in other areas of Peru (Ayacucho, Ancash, etc.) met similar ends. 65 Almost invariably community leaders lacked the time and skills needed to maintain a departmental or regional federation. Organizing and administering an association that encompasses many village syndicates require a greater level of political and administrative skills than most comunero leaders had. This was particularly true in the more traditional areas of the South. If talented comuneros did exist, they usually could not take sufficient time away from their livelihood and intravillage duties to devote themselves extensively to work outside the community. Consequently, almost all peasant associations of any magnitude were forced to turn to outside urban elements for help. They generally looked to university students and professors, urban labor unions, and sympathetic lawyers in the provincial or departmental capital. Such men as Hugo Blanco, Vládimir Valer, Genaro Ledesma, and Jesús Véliz Lizárraga played key roles in organizing, leading, or advising peasant federations. However, alliances with outsiders frequently led to new difficulties. Some urban groups—such as the Cerro de Pasco Miners' U n i o n provided limited aid during the initial period of land seizures, but they quickly seemed to lose interest in the campesino movement. This was particularly true of Aprista unions in Junín and Pasco. In other instances, urban sympathizers had different ideological orientations and goals than the comuneros. As we have seen, Cuzco villagers did not identify with the Maoist and Fidelista university students who led the Departmental Peasant Federation. Moreover, even when urban radicals carefully tailored their programs to the needs of the peasantry, they were still subjected to police persecution. 66 Divisions often occurred between the peasants and their urban 65

See Neira, Los Andes, pp. 206-208. Puno was another exceptional area where peasant organizations still functioned in 1969. See above, pp. 144-145, and Dew, Politics in the Altiplano. 66 One must be careful not to exaggerate the extent to which splits occurred between radical leaders and their peasant followers. Hugo Blanco, for example, is still revered by the campesinos of La Convención and much of Cuzco.

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allies, even when the outsiders were not particularly radical or ideological. Frequently, comuneros merely wished to acquire the lands they felt had been stolen from them by neighboring hacendados. Once they gained the land, they rarely saw the necessity for further organization on a regional level. Although most of the village leaders whom I interviewed desired services from the state (such as agricultural assistance and educational facilities in their comunidad), they usually did not recognize the need to form regional pressure groups to articulate their demands to the government and to put pressure on the appropriate governmental officials. Consequently, urban organizers usually found it difficult to organize intervillage associations.67 In subsequent chapters I will discuss the sierra peasantry's failure to understand the mechanisms of what Gabriel Almond and Sidney Verba call the "input mechanisms" of the political system.68 While village leaders generally had a realistic notion of what services their community needed from the state, they usually had no understanding of how to seek that assistance as active political participants. A last major obstacle to effective peasant federations was the lack of unity between residents of different villages in a particular region. In a series of interviews that I conducted with comunidad officials in Cuzco, Junín, and Pasco, I asked respondents whether they believed the communities in their department had common problems and interests. Only twenty-two of forty-one village leaders (53.6 percent) responded affirmatively. In two communities, the respondents were not sure whether common interests existed (4.9 percent of the sample). However, in seventeen communities (41.5 percent of the sample) village leaders felt that the comunidades had little or no common interests. 69 Although this last group represented a minority of community leaders, there seemed to be enough comunero officials who felt this way to seriously impede any regional federation. Moreover, some respondents suspected the motives of peasants from other comunidades. As I noted earlier, sev67 Hugo Blanco noted this problem in an interview at El Frontón prison in February, 1969. 68 See Chapter 9, below. 69 Survey of indigenous community leaders in forty-one selected comunidades conducted in the departments of Cuzco, Junín, and Pasco in April through June of 1969. See Chapters 7-9, below, for further discussion of this survey.

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eral village leaders suggested that officials of the departmental peasant federation were using that organization solely for the benefit of their own communities and were indifferent to the needs of other comunidades. It was difficult for peasant federations to function effectively in such an atmosphere. Until village leaders share a broadly based sense of common destiny, any campesino federation will be limited.70 Contrary to my original expectations, mutual trust among village leaders was more prevalent in the traditional comunidades of Cuzco than in the relatively developed regions of Pasco and Junín. In all of the eight communities that I studied in Cuzco, village leaders indicated that they shared common difficulties with peasants in other villages. In Junín, only 45 percent of the community leaders felt this way (9 of 20 communities), and in Pasco 38 percent (5 of 13 comunidades). Thus, the comuneros who were most inclined to cooperate with other villages in joint efforts—that is, the Cuzco peasant leaders—were also the ones who, because of their limited education and sophistication, were the least equipped to carry out that desire. Conversely, the most-sophisticated peasant regions— Pasco and Junín—suffered most from "amoral villagism" (see footnote 70). Thus, a number of serious difficulties impeded the growth of peasant federations in the 1960's. Only a few regional associations managed to overcome these obstacles. And not a single viable peasant organization was formed on a national or interdepartmental basis. Both the Maoist Peruvian Peasant Confederation (the CCP) and the Aprista National Federation of Peasants (FENCAP) claimed to have a national following. Such claims, however, were totally unfounded. Few sierra village leaders whom I interviewed knew anything of either group, and, of those, fewer still took either group seriously. Comunidad officials who had established contacts with village federations had done so only at the provincial or departmental levels. 70

Edward C. Banfield's The Moral Basis of a Backward Society describes a phenomenon he calls "amoral familism"—the peasant's inability to see the value of cooperation with persons outside the family unit. Comuneros in Peru commonly cooperated within their own village. However, they distrusted persons outside their comunidad. One might call the attitudes that I found among many community leaders "amoral villagism."

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Such associations as the Department Federation of Junín Communities (FEDECOJ) occasionally exercised meaningful political influence at the local level. A department prefect (governor) or a provincial subprefect might be persuaded to restrain local police. Yet, it was extremely difficult for peasant federations that were confined to a single department to exercise much influence on the national level. The number of votes they could control were significant in a local election but not in a national one. In the highly centralized Peruvian political system, political power was concentrated at the national level.71 Any regional federation that wished to get educational or agricultural aid for its member villages had to appeal to the appropriate ministries in Lima or to the president's office. And this was precisely where department village federations were least influential. This is why the Movimiento Comunal del Centro recognized that, if it hoped to become an effective organization, it would have to form alliances with groups in other departments. In spite of the formidable internal obstacles that I have outlined, a number of communities did form regional federations during the height of rural unrest. What was the reaction of the Peruvian political system to these peasant organizations? Did government leaders accept these new groups as legitimate spokesmen for comunero political interests? Until major political power contenders and governmental officials are willing to deal with the peasantry's associational interest groups, efforts by the Movimiento Comunal and others to organize the communities will be somewhat futile. As we have seen, a number of organizations were subjected to police harassment that contributed significantly to their demise. In Cuzco and most of the mancha india, federation leaders and local village officials were imprisoned and often allowed to languish in jail for several years without any charges being preferred against them. Usually peasant associations were unable to withstand such persecution. Yet, in La Convención the Provincial Federation survived and flourished despite the arrest of Hugo Blanco and other key leaders. Today the La Convención Federation represents the valley's campesinos in their dealings with the Agrarian Reform Agency and other government offices. 71

See Wells N. Allred, "Government outside Lima, the National Capital."

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In other areas the government was more responsive to peasant interest groups. In Junín the Belaúnde administration worked closely with FEDECOJ and the Movimiento Comunal from their inception. Elias Tácunan, the leader of both these groups, was occasionally called to the presidential palace for consultation.72 Three factors seemed to have been significant in determining the relationship between the government and incipient interest groups. First, as we have seen, the Belaúnde administration seemed intent on destroying any federation whose leadership subscribed to a radical or revolutionary ideology. The president undoubtedly did this because he was under great pressure from important power contenders, particularly the military and the nation's leading landowners. It is interesting to note that La Prensa, a paper closely associated with Peru's largest hacendados, took a relatively amicable editorial position toward anticommunist groups, such as FENCAP or the Christian Democratic union, MOSICP. 73 However, it insisted that more-militant organizations be crushed. Even when radical peasant leaders pursued rather moderate policies, they were often imprisoned by the Belaúnde administration or by its predecessors— Prado and the military junta of 1962-1963. Thus, Genaro Ledesma was arrested three times, although he never advocated revolutionary or radical policies in his Pasco Federation. Groups with nonradical leadership—FEDECOJ or MOSICP, for example—were not persecuted. It appears that the government was also influenced by the number of members of a peasant organization who were active participants in the political system at the time of the village mobilizations. In Junín and Pasco most comuneros were registered voters. Village leaders in that area often had previously established ties with one of the nation's three major political parties. 74 Thus, the comuneros in those department federations were too politically sophisticated, 72

Tullis, Lord and Peasant, p. 68. See La Prensa, February 8, 1962, p. 8. 74 Communities in Junín tended to be associated with APRA prior to the election (particularly in the province of Huancayo) and, increasingly, Belaúnde's Acción Popular thereafter. Pasco comunidades were somewhat likely to be connected with APRA. And, in Tarma, many villages were ciated with UNO, the party of rightist ex-dictator Manuel Odría, who from that area and lavished public-work projects on its comunidades. 73

1963 with more assocame

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mobilized, and organized for the government to risk a policy of repression. Few village leaders were jailed in the central highlands, and those that were imprisoned were soon released. This was true even under the conservative Prado administration. 75 On the other hand, the government was free to pursue a far more repressive policy toward the Quechua villagers of Cuzco, who were too backward to resist. In provinces like Canchis and Quispicanchis (Cuzco), large numbers of village leaders were jailed merely for forming syndicates. Thus, as we have seen previously (see Chapter 5 ) , the campesino federations in the South labored under a double handicap. First, they lacked the voting strength to acquire protective patrons among the major political parties. Second, the political alliances they formed were with radical groups that were not legitimate in the eyes of the political power structure. Yet, the Provincial Peasant Federation in La Convención overcame these obstacles, survived governmental repression, and eventually was accepted by the national government—albeit reluctantly—as the spokesman for the valley's peasantry. When Hugo Blanco was arrested, local campesinos assumed leadership roles. With the help of their urban allies in Cuzco, they were able to keep the Federation functioning. Many of the peasant leaders who succeeded Blanco were also imprisoned. Yet, the general level of commitment of the Federation's membership was too great to allow the government to destroy the movement. As one of the Federation's present secretaries put it to me: "They have sent me to El Frontón and El Sepa [Peru's two most notorious penitentiaries]; they have tortured me several times; what more can they do to me? I am not afraid and they know it."76 Today all activities in La Convención are still closely observed by the military and the police. Because guerrillas operated in the valley in 1965, it has been declared a special security area. All persons entering the province are required to report to the police 75

In 1962, when the village of San Pedro de Yanahuanca staged a land seizure in Pasco, the Prado administration arrested 150 comuneros. However, they were all released within eight days in response to demonstrations by comuneros and miners in various parts of Pasco. "Interview, May, 1969.

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within twenty-four hours. When I traveled to the provincial capital of Quillabamba in 1969 to observe a peasant May Day demonstration, my companions and I were questioned by the police as to our purpose in the city. We were followed by plainclothesmen throughout our stay. The headquarters of the Provincial Peasant Federation was under constant surveillance. Yet, local peasants were not intimidated by the police, and there was a constant flow of campesinos in and out of the headquarters. Faced with this kind of grassroots support, three national administrations recognized the Federation as a quasi-legitimate power contender in the valley.77 The experiences of the Movimiento Comunal del Centro and the Provincial Peasant Federation of La Convención and Lares (FPCC) demonstrate that under certain circumstances independent peasant associational interest groups were accepted into the political system. Yet, these organizations were the exceptions to a general pattern of failure. Even when the peasants were able to overcome the tremendous internal obstacles to intervillage organization, they were faced with a generally hostile political system. Groups like FEDECOJ were accepted by the Belaúnde administration, largely because they served the president's own political interests (reducing APRA influence in the central sierra). The military government that succeeded Belaúnde has been even less receptive to independent peasant organizations. Although the junta has initiated a far-reaching land-reform program in the highlands, it has also jailed a number of officials of independent peasant federations. With sufficiently strong commitment and support, a peasant movement can withstand such pressures. Such was the case in La Convención. But the path is not an easy one. The rural mobilization of 1963-1964 reduced the political isolation of the comunidades somewhat. But, the sierra peasantry remained a politically underprivileged sector. 77

The three administrations were the military junta of 1962-1963; the Belaúnde government of 1963-1968; and the military government of 1968 to the present.

7. SOCIAL CORRELATES OF PEASANT MOBILIZATION

It is difficult to assess the long-term effects of the village land movement. In most areas of the sierra, hacienda seizures and peasant federations were short-lived. The Peruvian government's policies of repression (or, occasionally, co-optation) contained peasant mobilization and limited its immediate effects on the political system. Yet, the political world of thousands of comuneros was changed by the movement and could never again be the same. Throughout the highlands, peasants challenged a political, economic, and legal system that they had previously accepted passively.1 A network of village federations gave the comuneros their first political contacts with nearby communities and sympathetic urban groups. Movements like this do not occur in a vacuum. Peru's peasant mobilization can undoubtedly be traced to earlier changes in the social, economic, and political structure of the sierra. Increased population pressure on the land, the resulting migration of villagers to the cities, the commercialization of agriculture, the spread of 1

It is estimated that approximately 300,000 comuneros took part in the land invasions. Thousands more were involved in peasant federations. Consequently, mobilization touched the lives of a large portion of Peru's peasantry. See Comité Interamericano de Desarrollo Agrícola (CIDA), Tenencia de la tierra y desarrollo socioeconómico del sector agrícola: Perú, p. 396.

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mass communications, and a host of other factors broke down the comuneros traditional isolation from the nation-state. The leading studies of the land-seizure movement have traced peasant political mobilization to these earlier social changes in the countryside. Yet, surprisingly little is known about the relationship between socioeconomic development in the sierra and peasant mobilization.2 For example, how does one explain the fact that rural unrest was most acute in two extremely different regions of the sierra—the traditional Indian communities of Cuzco and the more developed cholo villages of Junín and Pasco? Might it be that the village movements in the mancha india and in the central highlands represented two distinct types of peasant mobilization? To what extent could differences between the two movements be explained by socioeconomic variations? 3 In 1969, I interviewed the leaders of forty-one highland communities in order to study the nature of Peruvian peasant mobilization more fully. The villages that I visited were located in the three major centers of rural unrest—Cuzco, Junín, and Pasco. In each of these departments, I selected comunidades from two provinces. Twenty-one of the surveyed communities had invaded hacienda lands in the early 1960's. The other twenty villages were selected 2 Throughout this study the term peasant mobilization refers exclusively to political mobilization—i.e., the process whereby people who were previously removed from the political system actively enter in the political process. The term, then, is more restricted than is the process of "social mobilization" discussed in Karl W. Deutsch, "Social Mobilization and Political Development," American Political Science Review 55 (September 1961): 493-514. The two leading works on the Peruvian land-seizure movement are Hugo Neira Samañez, Los Andes; and Aníbal Quijano Obregón, "El movimiento campesino peruano y sus líderes," América Latina 8 (October-December 1965): 43-65. Both authors indicate that peasant mobilization was an outgrowth of socioeconomic change, but neither study tries to investigate that relationship empirically. Two studies by North American social scientists are concerned with the correlates of peasant mobilization: Wesley W. Craig, Jr., From Hacienda to Community; and F . LaMond Tullis, Lord and Peasant in Peru. However, each work deals only with a single region of the countryside. 8 An adequate theory of peasant mobilization would also explain why communities with very similar levels of socioeconomic development act quite differently politically. One village might partake in several invasions and join a peasant federation, while a neighboring community with similar land disputes might remain passive.

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Mobilization

from a matched sample of neighboring communities that had not seized lands (see Table 7.1). TABLE 7.1 Distribution of Communities in the Study Department Cuzco

Province Canchis Quispicanchis

Junín

Huancayo Tarma

Pasco

Daniel Carrión Pasco Total

Invading Communities 3 2 5 5 5 10 3 3 6 21

Noninvading Communities 0 3 3 6 4 10 3 4 7 20

Total 3 5 8 11 9 20 6 7 13 41

My research focused on six aspects of community life. First, what was the community's level of socioeconomic development? Key informants were asked about the extent of electrification in their village, the level of education, and other indicators of development. Second, how extensive were the villagers' contacts with the outside world? For example, how many comuneros in a particular village owned radios? Third, informants were asked about the degree of internal solidarity or conflict within the comunidad. Fourth, to what extent did comuneros feel a sense of solidarity with nearby communities? Fifth, how politically mobilized had the village been during the period of peasant unrest? Finally, what were the political attitudes of village leaders? Through my survey of village leaders, I hoped to study the relationships among these variables. 4 In each of the communities, I administered a questionnaire to key informants that was aimed at tapping these dimensions of village life. Informants always included the president of the community council (called the junta comunal) or the personero (the vil4 These major dimensions of village life will be discussed more fully later in this chapter.

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Social Correlates of Peasant Mobilization

lage official elected to represent the comunidad in its dealings with the state or national governments). Whenever possible both men were questioned, as were other members of the junta comunal. Several important warnings should be offered at this point regarding the validity and reliability of my data and of the conclusions that were based on them. Had it been possible, I should have liked to survey a random sample of comuneros in each village. However, limitations on my time and resources forced me to rely on key informants. Village leaders could generally provide me with fairly precise and accurate answers to certain questions. Written records indicated the village's population, the number of children attending elementary school, and so forth. Other aggregate data that I collected were based on my informants' estimates. For example, village leaders could offer only an educated guess as to the number of comuneros with radios or the number who traveled to nearby towns each week. Consequently, this information might not be totally accurate. However, in order to increase the reliability of my data, I interviewed several officials in each community. Since each of them was quite familiar with his comunidad, I believe that my data are reasonably reliable. 5 A more serious problem is that my survey was conducted five years after the outbreak of village land invasions. My study was concerned with socioeconomic correlates of political mobilization. Yet, socioeconomic conditions in my forty-one comunidades might have changed considerably since the end of the rural unrest. The very process of political mobilization may have induced socioeco5

In each village my research assistants and I interviewed the informants jointly, rather than separately. This enabled them to consult with each other on factual data about the community, which, we hope, produced more accurate responses. There were some disadvantages to this method. Several of the items in my questionnaire dealt with the political attitudes of village leaders. By interviewing them jointly, I risked the possibility that informants might be reluctant to express certain controversial opinions in the presence of fellow comuneros. Furthermore, the responses that I recorded on these attitudinal questions necessarily represented a consensus of opinions offered by my informants. Because most indigenous communities are fairly small and homogeneous, elected oflBcials within each particular village tended to share similar political attitudes. However, it is unlikely that they were ever in complete unanimity on all attitudinal items. Consequently, my study undoubtedly has blurred differences of opinion among each village's elite.

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nomic changes in mobilized communities. Socioeconomic differences between mobilized and immobilized villages in 1969 may not have existed in 1963-1964. Little can be done to overcome this difficulty in a study that is conducted several years after the event under investigation. Consequently, I have been forced to assume that villages that were the most socioeconomically advanced in 1969 tended to be more developed five years previously.6 A principal objective of my survey was to investigate possible relationships among socioeconomic development, political behavior, and political attitudes. For example, were economically developed communities more prone to join peasant federations, or did the traditional villages join in greater numbers? Were the villages that seized land more sceptical about the likelihood of governmental agrarian reform than were the unmobilized communities? Here again, I encountered certain methodological problems. My measurements of social development, outside contacts, internal village solidarity, and so forth were based on aggregate data for the entire community. However, the political attitudes that I recorded were solely those of village leaders. Because I was unable to survey rank-and-file comuneros in the villages, I had no way of knowing whether the political attitudes of comunidad leaders were representative of the entire community. Consequently, I have correlated the social characteristics of an entire village population with the political orientations of its leaders. 7 6

In 1961, Ulrich Ritter and Héctor Martínez, of the Ministry of Labor's Instituto Indigenista, conducted a mail survey of over seven hundred registered indigenous communities. Though the purpose of that study was quite different from my own, some of its questions were similar to mine. Moreover, nine of the villages that Martínez and Ritter surveyed were among the forty-one that I studied. When those nine villages were rank ordered on various indices of social and economic development, their relative rates of development in 1969 were quite similar to their standings in 1961. Since the Martínez and Ritter survey was conducted prior to the land invasions, it tended to confirm my assumption that relative levels of development had not changed significantly in the 1960's. 7 Thus, for example, we might find that villages with a high level of outside contacts tend to have leaders who are more sympathetic to urban leftists. Again, one cannot assume from such a correlation that greater outside contact produces more sympathy for urban leftists among rank-and-file comuneros. Yet, the correlates of the political orientations of the village elite are important to

160

Social Correlates of Feasant Mobilization

Finally, it is important to note that my survey encompassed a small number of communities (only 41 out of a universe of 6,000 peasant villages). Moreover, the sample was selected on the basis of a number of practical considerations, such as geographical accessibility (i.e., proximity to roads and public transport). The mostisolated communities were not included in the study. 8 And all the comunidades were clustered in six provinces. On the whole, the forty-one villages represent a fairly good cross section of sierra communities. In several of the Cuzco comunidades, very few peasants spoke Spanish, and fewer still were literate. Conversely, in Pasco, one village had its own secondary school and hospital. Yet, my sample was not randomly selected and may not be totally representative of highland communities in Peru. Thus, any conclusions drawn from the data must remain tentative. The Process of Peasant

Mobilization

As we have seen, the political mobilization of Peru's comuneros took two forms. First, hacienda lands were invaded spontaneously; second, regional peasant federations were developed. Most analysts suggest that village federations grew out of the impetus for change that the earlier invasions had created. 9 Thirty-two of the communities in my sample belonged to a peasant organization or formed a sindicato within the village. My interviews indicated that some consider in themselves. The political attitudes of village leaders may be determinants of comunidad behavior (e.g., whether or not a community invades a hacienda). Gabriel Escobar M. suggests in "La estructura política rural del departamento de Puno" that the leaders of village sindicatos or invasions were often different from the elected comunidad officials and were often younger and more militant. I did not find this to be the case in the villages that I studied. Consequently, I have concerned myself with the consensus of political attitudes of the elected village officials, not the problem of competing elites within the comunidad. 8 Some villages were several miles from the nearest roads. For example, to reach Punabamba, the Cuzco village described in Chapter 1, I had to climb a mountain road for three hours. The community was accessible only by foot, and some of the children had never seen a white person before. Yet, Punabamba was less remote than other villages in Peru. None of the comunidades that I studied required more than one day's travel to reach. See Appendix Β for more information on my selection process. 9 See Quijano, "El movimiento campesino"; and Neira, Los Andes.

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161

comunidades had invaded hacienda lands without later joining a peasant federation. Conversely, some communities belonging to village federations had not participated in land seizures. I wished to know whether these two forms of mobilization were actually as closely related as I had expected. Consequently, I classified the communities according to their degree of organization. Villages that had formed sindicatos and joined regional federations were considered highly organized. Towns that had created sindicatos but had not joined federations were called moderately organized. And, those without any peasant movement were called unorganized. The villages' level of organization was then correlated with participation in land seizures. TABLE 7.2 Land Invasions and Community Organization Level of Organization Noni Moderate High Total

Noninvading Communities (%) (No.) 35 7 65 13 0 0 1ÕÕ 20

Invading Communities (%) (No.) 9 2 72 15 19 4 100 21 Tau-c = .378

Table 7.2 indicates that there was a mild association between a village's involvement in land invasions and its level of organization. Noninvading comunidades were more likely to be totally unorganized, while only communities that had experienced previous land invasions had high levels of organization. On the other hand, nearly two-thirds of the villages that had never invaded land were moderately organized (Table 7.2).10 Consequently, in the course of this study I have treated invasions and the creation of village sindicatos as two related, but not identical, forms of village mobilization. The Process of Social Change: The Central Sierra and the "Mancha India9 Earlier in this study (Chapter 4 ) , I noted that by the 1960's tra10 Data for all of the tables in this chapter, unless otherwise noted, are drawn from village officials or from written village records.

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ditional rural society was breaking down throughout the sierra. My trips through the highlands showed me the extent to which change was transforming the campo. The process of modernization had begun in all the communities that I visited. Even in the more remote comunidades of Cuzco, a few villagers could speak and write Spanish. In every town some children were attending primary school, and several adults owned transistor radios.11 Yet, there were also marked differences between the villages of Cuzco and those of Junín and Pasco. While social change was well advanced in the central sierra, it was just touching rural Cuzco. TABLE 7.3 Distribution of District Capitals and Annexes

Cuzcc> (No.) 100 8 0 0 100 8

(%) Annexes Capitals

(%)

Junín

45 55 100

(No.) 9 11 20

Pasco (No.) 39 5 61 8 13 100

(%)

One of the more-important indicators of a community's exposure to the modern world was its administrative position within its district.12 As Table 7.3 indicates, over 50 percent of the villages surveyed in Junín and Pasco were district capitals. These towns had regularized contacts with the state and national governments. In Cuzco, however, all the indigenous communities were district annexes whose contacts with the outside world were mediated through the mestizo power structure in the district capital. Several community officials in Cuzco indicated that they had applied to the national government for status as a district capital, but none had been successful.13 11

A small, but increasing, number of radio broadcasts were in Quechua. In any event, there are always one or two comuneros who can translate important news programs to their fellow villagers in traditional Indian areas. 12 The distrito ("district") is the smallest administrative unit in Peru (comparable to a county in the United States). Within each district, one village is designated by the national government as the capital. District capitals are generally populated by cholos or mestizos. Indian villages in the mancha india are invariably annexes of the district capital. 13 New districts can be created by the national government, if it wishes to do so. In this way a village can raise its status from annex to capital.

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163

Another important factor retarding the political efficacy of many southern villagers was their inability to speak the national language. At the end of the 1960's, a majority of comuneros in Cuzco and other regions of the mancha india still could not speak Spanish. In Junín and Pasco, however, Spanish had become so widespread that knowledge of Quechua was beginning to decline, especially among the younger villagers (see Tables 7.4 and 7.5). TABLE 7.4 Quechua-Speaking Comuneros Percent of Village Speaking Quechua 0-79 80-89 90-95 96-100 Total

Cuzco Communities (No.) (%) 0 0 0 0 0 0 8 100 8 100

Junín Communities

(%)

(No.)

22 0 17 61 100

4 0 3 11

18

Pasco Communities (%) (No.) 0 0 7 1 62 8 31 4

100

13

TABLE 7.5 Spanish-Speaking Comuneros Percent of Village Speaking Spanish 0-49 50-89 90-95 96-100 Total

Cuzco Communities (No.) (%) 6 86 14 1 0 0 0 0 100 7

Junín Communities (No.) (%) 10 2 20 4 10 2 12 60 100

20

Pasco Communities (%) (No.) 0 0 39 5 46 6 15 2 100 13

Cuzco's communities lagged behind the villages of Junín and Pasco in every aspect of socioeconomic development tapped by my questionnaire. In the central highlands, village leaders might tell me of plans to establish a local secondary school, while in Cuzco, a comunidad considered itself lucky if it could offer two years of elementary education. All too often young children in the South had to walk several hours to reach the nearest elementary school. Quite naturally, then, children in Cuzco were less likely to attend primary schools (see Table 7.6). Concomitantly, Cuzco's comuneros

Social Correlates of Peasant Mobilization

164

had a far lower level of literacy. Over 60 percent of the communities that I visited in the central highlands were partially electrified (20 of 33 villages in Junín and Pasco; see Table 7.6), while in Cuzco, not a single comunidad had electricity. Finally, Cuzco's villagers had less contact with the nation's modern sector. Radios were scarcer than in the Center, and fewer comuneros traveled to nearby cities each week. TABLE 7.6 Indicators of Socioeconomic Development

Children in primary school Adult literacy Villages with electricity Adults with radios Travelers to nearby cities

Cuzco

Junín

Pasco

(%)

(%)

(%)

29 19 0 8 13

52 30 45 45 21

52 39 84 35 26

Some Hypotheses on Modernization and Community Political Mobilization. There is, then, a great gap between the world of the cholo villager in Pasco and the world of a Cuzco Indian. When I first visited a Quechua comunidad in the South, I felt that I had been transported several hundred years back in time. I met children who had never seen a pair of eyeglasses or been treated by a doctor. The matches and bread that we brought to villages like Punabamba were welcomed as valuable commodities. By contrast, most of the sample villages in the central sierra seemed quite advanced.14 Might the development gap between these two regions explain the differences in the type of peasant mobilization that evolved in each area? Many scholars have suggested that the extent and nature of peasant political mobilization in a particular region are closely linked to the prevailing level of socioeconomic development. Henry Landsberger and Cynthia Hewitt's research design on Mexican 14 However, there were notable exceptions in both regions. Several communities in both Junín and Pasco were fairly backward, and some Cuzco villages were considerably more advanced than Punabamba. Consequently, a few Cuzco comunidades were more modernized than were several villages in Pasco or Junín.

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165

campesino groups hypothesizes that peasant participation in rural organizations would correlate positively with an individual's educational and economic level.15 Similarly, a study of Peruvian comunidades indicates that peasant organizations were more prevalent in villages with higher educational levels.16 Addressing himself to the issues of social change and political development, Karl Deutsch indicates that "increasing numbers of [a socially] mobilized population . . . tend to translate themselves into increased political participation." 17 In short, peasant mobilization is generally associated with modernity and increased peasant contacts with the urban sector of the nation. Gerrit Huizer notes that "areas where important regional or nationwide [peasant] movements started are amongst the less poor and less 'marginal' agricultural areas in Latin America. . . . These areas are relatively less isolated or less rigidly traditional and feudal."18 Hence, one might expect that political mobilization of sierra villages—as expressed by land invasions and membership in peasant federations—would be positively associated with a community's level of socioeconomic development and outside contact. 19 Yet, we have seen that unrest did erupt in traditional regions of Cuzco. Might it be that mobilization in Cuzco still took place in the comunidades that were relatively more modernized? Some Indicators of Modernity. In order to examine the correlates of peasant political mobilization more extensively, each of the 15

Henry A. Landsberger and Cynthia N. Hewitt, "A Pilot Study of Participation in Rural Organizations: 'Political Socialization' in Mexico." 16 William F. Whyte, "The Myth of the Passive Peasant: Dynamics of Change in Rural Peru." 17 Deutsch, "Social Mobilization," p. 499. 18 Gerrit Huizer, "Peasant Organizations and Agrarian Reform in Latin Ameiica." 19 Again, the unit of analysis that I am concerned with is the village as an aggregate body. Landsberger's paper and many other works on political participation or mobilization are concerned with the social correlates of individual behavior. It is quite conceivable that the correlates of group mobilization and those of individual mobilization may differ. In the United States, for example, the least educationally advantaged urban groups—blacks, chícanos—are the most likely to participate in urban disturbances, such as riots. Yet, within the black community, individual participation of black youths in riots often correlates positively with education.

166

Social Correlates of Peasant Mobilization

forty-one villages in my survey was scored on indices of social and economic development. The construction of these indices is described below: 1. Social Development. Officials of each community provided estimates of the number of comuneros in their town who spoke Spanish, the number of children attending primary schools, and the number of literate villagers. These figures were translated into percentages, and each community was ranked on a scale of 1-4 for each of the variables (1 being the lowest level of literacy, and 4 representing the highest). 20 By adding up a community's rank score on all three variables, I was able to assign to each village a total score of 3-12 on a scale of social development. Finally, each comunidad was ranked as low (3-6 total score), medium ( 7 - 9 ) , or high (10-12) in overall social development. 21 2. Economic Development. Four indicators of economic development that had a relatively high level of intercorrelation were selected from my survey schedule: presence of electricity in the village, designation of the community as a district capital or an annex, use of hired peons from outside the community as agricul20

The criteria for assigning villages to particular categories (i.e., the cuttingpoints) were the same in all departments. These cutting-points for all the ordinal scales that I have created in this chapter are found in Appendix A. The reader is referred to that appendix for a more-extensive explanation of the various scales and indices that are used in this chapter. One would not normally translate an interval scale (percent literate, etc.) into an ordinal scale. However, I have done so for two reasons. First, since my data are based on the estimates of key informants, there may be considerable margin for error in a village statistic. I could not be certain, for example, that a village that was allegedly 60 percent literate was really more literate than a community with an estimated literacy level of 50 percent. In short, I felt that my measurements were too crude to make a product-moment correlation of interval data useful. Furthermore, I had reason to suspect that small percentage differences between two villages' literacy rates, and so forth, would not have a significant effect on political mobilization. Therefore, it seemed more meaningful to assign communities to a broad scale of low through high for the various indicators of socioeconomic development. Since my ordinal scales had a large number of ties, I used Kendall's tau (Tau-c) to test for rank-order correlations. 21 The three indicators used here (capacity to speak the national language, education, and literacy) are frequently employed in the social sciences as indicators of social development. In the villages that I studied, each of the three variables correlated positively with the other two.

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Social Correlates of Peasant Mobilization 22

tural labor, the ratio of stores to village population. The first three variables were dichotomous. Consequently, villages with electricity, district capitals, or those that hired peons were given a score of 4 for each. Communities without electricity or peons and district annexes were given a score of l. 23 In addition, villages were ranked on a scale of 1-4 on the basis of the ratio of stores to village population (1 representing the fewest stores per person, 4 the largest number). Scores on the four scales were combined, and each community was ranked low (4-6 points combined score for the four variables), medium (7-11 points), or high (12-16) in overall economic development. The scores that I arrived at confirmed previous observations regarding the level of community development in Cuzco and the central highlands. In total, Cuzco's comunidades were significantly less developed than the villages of Junín and Pasco. Thus, six of Cuzco's eight communities (75 percent) were ranked low in social development, while seven (88 percent) were among the least developed economically. However, my social indicators indicated that two villages in Cuzco were more modernized socially than six of the communities in the Center (see Tables 7.7 and 7.8). TABLE 7.7 Distribution of Communities by Social Development Community Rank Low Medium High Total

22

Cuzco (%) (No.) 6 75 2 25 0 0 8 100

Junín

(%) 10 50 40 100

(No.) 2 10 8 20

(%)

31 54 15 100

Pasco (No.)

4 7 2 13

Selecting indicators of economic development was one of my most-difficult problems. One might have evaluated a village's housing conditions, dietary levels, cash incomes, and so forth. However, it would be very difficult to gather data on these items. Some of the indices that I used have also been used by the Cornell University evaluation of Peace Corps effectiveness in Peru. There was a positive intercorrelation between each of these four variables in the communities surveyed. 23 Since I was not able to get figures on the number of peons hired by a village, I made it a dichotomous scale; it appeared that this kind of division was also more useful than was a more specific ordinal scale.

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TABLE 7.8 Distribution of Communities by Economic Development Community Rank Low Medium High Total

Cuzco (No.) 88 7 12 1 0 0 100 8

(%)

Junín

(%) 20 40 40 100

(No.) 4 8 8 20

Pasco (No.) 0 0 6 46 7 54 13 100

(%)

TABLE 7.9 Community Social and Economic Development Economic Development Low Medium High Total

(%)

Low

58 17 25 100

(No.) 7 2 3 12

Social Development Medium (No.) (%) 11 2 57 11 32 6 100 19

High (No.) 20 2 2 20 60 6 10 100 Tau-c = .314

(%)

As might be expected, communities that were more advanced in terms of my social indicators also tended to be more developed economically. In Table 7.9 we see that there was a positive correlation between social and economic development. Modernization and Mobilization. I suggested earlier that the process of modernization in a sierra community (i.e., social and economic development) was closely associated with village mobilization. Previous literature on peasant unrest led me to expect that cholo communities that were more integrated into the national economy and culture would be more likely to join a peasant federation or to invade a hacienda than the traditional Indian villages were. 24 My survey indicated that there was a mild relationship between social development and participation in land invasions. However, contrary to my hypothesis, the association was negative (see Table 7.10). The least-literate comunidades with the lowest number of Spanish speakers were most likely to have invaded haciendas.

24

See pp. 164-165, above.

Social Correlates of Peasant

Mobilization

169

TABLE 7.10 Social Development and Land Seizures Low No seizure Seizure Total

(%) 33 67 100

(No.) 4 8 12

Social Development Medium (%) (No.) 47 9 53 10 100 19

High (%) (No.) 70 7 30 3 100 10 Tau-c = —.283

Might social development be related to membership in peasant federations? Here we would have strong reason to believe that the more-educated acculturated communities would have an appreciation of the value of associational interest groups. Conversely, Indian villagers might be more suspicious of joining a new regional organization directed by outsiders. Here again, my expectations were not confirmed. There was only a very weak relationship between social development and the extent of village organization (i.e., existence of a village sindicato or membership in a regional peasant federation). Moreover, the direction of this correlation was negative (Table 7.11). None of the most-developed comunidades were highly organized, whereas 25 percent of the least-developed villages belonged to a regional federation and formed a local sindicato. TABLE 7.11 Social Development and Community Organization Level of Community Organization Low Medium High Total

Low

(%) 17 58 25 100

(No.) 2 7 3 12

Social Development Medium (No.) (%) 26 5 68 13 6 1 100 19

High (%) (No.) 20 2 80 8 0 0 100 10 Tau-c = —.139

Thus, contrary to what I had anticipated, communities with few Spanish speakers, low literacy, and limited educational opportunities tended to be more mobilized during the village unrest than their more-modernized counterparts.

170

Social

Correlates

of Peasant

Mobilization

Was there a relationship, then, between mobilization and economic development? Here again, the association was the opposite of what I had anticipated (Tables 7.12 and 7.13). The district capitals, villages with electricity and hired peons, and towns with a large number of stores per capita tended to be less mobilized than the economically underdeveloped comunidades. For example, not one of the most economically advanced communities was highly organized. TABLE 7.12 Economic Development and Land Seizures Low (%)

36 64 100

No seizure Seizure Total

Economic Development Medium (No.) (%) (No.)

4 7

11

53 47 100

8 7 15

High (No.) 8 53 7 47

(%)

1ÕÕ

15"

Tau-c = —.133

TABLE 7.13 Economic Development and Community Organization Level of Community Organization Low Medium High Total

Low (%) (No.) 9 1 63 7 27 3

100 11

Economic Development Medium (%) (No.) 3 20 11 73 7 1 100 15

High (%) (No.) 33 5 67 10 0 0 100 15 Tau-c = —.274

Mobilization and Outside Contact. How might we explain the higher rate of mobilization among socioeconomically backward peasant communities? In previous chapters (Chapters 5 and 6) we observed that urban radicals from the city of Cuzco had helped organize peasant federations in the South. To a lesser extent, outsiders like Genaro Ledesma and Jesús Véliz exercised a similar influence in the Center. 25 Might it be that urban sympathizers had helped the traditional Indian communities overcome their back25

See Chapters 5 and 6, above.

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171

wardness? If radical students had served as a link to modernity for Quechua-speaking villagers, this might explain how the morebackward communities were able to organize sindicatos or occupy latifundios. We have seen that the isolation of traditional peasant communities from the national economic and political systems was generally considered a major obstacle to peasant political mobilization. In Julio Cotler's terms, traditional villages are part of a "triangle without a base," and, as parts of this triangle, they have little independent contact with each other or with the outside world. They must mediate through a nonpeasant gamonal.26 Increased outside contacts could break down that culture of domination and mobilize the peasantry. I was not able to gather data on the extent to which outsiders traveled to particular comunidades. However, I did have other indicators of outside contact. My village informants indicated that the comuneros' main links with the modern world came through the radio and excursions to nearby cities. Spanish and Quechua radio broadcasts enabled even the most-backward villages to learn about rural unrest or the emergence of peasant federations. News of the outside world also came to the villages from comuneros who traveled to the provincial or departmental capitals to market their goods, pay their taxes, purchase manufactured products, and so forth. All the communities in my survey were ranked on a scale of 1-4 (low through high) according to the percentage of villagers who owned radios and the percentage of comuneros who traveled to nearby cities each week. After those two scores were combined, each village was ranked low (2-3 points), medium (4-5), or high (6-8) in its level of outside contact. Here again, I found that Cuzco's villages lagged behind the communities of Junín and Pasco, just as they had been more backward in their social and economic development. Over 40 percent of the comunidades in the central highlands had a high level of outside contact through travel and the radio (13 of 31 communi-

26 The concept of "the triangle without a base" is discussed in Tullis, Lord and Peasant in Peru, pp. 42-45; see Chapter 3, above.

Social Correlates of Feasant Mobilization

172

ties). Yet, not a single village in Cuzco had a comparable level of exposure to the national culture (see Table 7.14). TABLE 7.14 Distribution of Communities by Outside Contact Community Rank Low Medium High Total

Cuzco (%) (No.) 75 6 2 25 0 0 100 8

(%) 21 42 37 100

Junín

(No.) 4 8 7 19

Pasco (No.) 41 5 1 9 50 6 12 100

(%)

TABLE 7.15 Outside Contact and Land Seizures ]Level

Low (No.) 7 8

(%) No seizure Seizure Total

47 53

100

15

of Outside Contact Medium (No.) (%) 64 7 36 4 100 11

High (No.) 38 5 8 62

(%)

100

13"

Tau- c = . 0 6 3

TABLE 7.16 Outside Contact and Community Organization Level of Community Organization Low Medium High Total

]Level

]Low

(%) 20 60 20 100

(No.) 3 9 3 15

of Outside Contact Medium (No.) (%) 27 3 64 7 9 1 11 100

High (No.) 2 15 11 85 0 0 13 100

(%)

Tau-c = —.082 Contrary to what I had anticipated, there was no relationship between a village's level of outside contact and its propensity to seize land (Table 7.15). Similarly, I found no correlation between outside contact and membership in peasant organizations (Table 7.16). The apparent absence of association between outside contact and peasant mobilization is interesting since outside contacts are posi-

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173

tively associated with social and economic development (see Tables 7.17 and 7.18). That is to say, villages with high levels of outside contact tended to be more advanced socially and economically. Yet, the most-modernized comunidades were not more prone to mobilize; if anything, they were less so (see Tables 7.10-7.13). TABLE 7.17 Community Social Development and Outside Contact

Outside Contact Low Medium High Total

(%)

Low (No.) 9 1 2

75 8 17 100

12

Social Development Medium (No.) (%) 6 35 6 35 5 30 100 17

(%) 0 40 60

High (No.) 0 4 6

100 10 Tau-c = .469

TABLE 7.18 Community Economic Development and Outside Contact

Outside Contact Low Medium High Total

(%) 73 18 9

100

Low

Economic Development Medium (No.) (No.) (%) 8 31 4 4 2 31 5 38 1 13 100 11

High (%) (No.) 20 3 33 5 47 7 100 15 Tau-c = .366

Some Hypotheses on Elite Political Orientations In my travels to Quechua communities in Cuzco (and the Center), I observed that even in the more-traditional villages a few comuneros could speak and read Spanish and were relatively familiar with the outside world. Sometimes these men were veterans who had been exposed to the modern world during their years in the armed forces. Others had worked for several years on the coast and then returned to their comunidades. These men frequently became the elected leaders of their villages since they were best equipped to handle the community's dealings with the outside world. 27 Thus, 27

Any village that wished to be recognized by the Ministry of Labor and Indigenous Affairs as a registered indigenous community had to have a per-

174

Social Correlates of Peasant Mobilization

even the remote Indian village of Punabamba in Cuzco had a council president who had lived in Lima for several years. In the neighboring comunidad of Oropesa, a young university student served as the temporary village secretary. Aníbal Quijano has suggested that these partially acculturated men (called cholos) were decisive actors in the political mobilization of Quechua communities in the mancha india.28 Undoubtedly, village officials—the personero and the members of the junta comunal— influenced their community's political behavior. They would be carefully listened to before the comuneros undertook a land invasion or joined a regional peasant federation. In short, the political orientations of a village's elite may well have been an independent determinant of comunidad behavior. Furthermore, these orientations may have mediated the effects of underlying social and economic conditions on village mobilization. Consequently, I wished to study the political attitudes of community officials, the socioeconomic correlates of those attitudes, and their relationship with village mobilization. Aníbal Quijano argues that the invasion of haciendas in the sierra was politically significant because peasant participants eventually widened their demands to encompass more economic and political questions than land tenure. There was a "tendency to question the basic aspects of the dominant social order, gradually including within their scope the most fundamental problems and calling for thorough changes in social structure. . . . These objectives encompass ideological models which are radically different from those which guided the traditional [peasant] movements." 29 He also indicates that village leaders who were partially integrated into the national culture were important actors in precipitating village mobilization and radicalization.30

sonero who was literate in Spanish. In the mancha india the personero was often one of the only people in town who could write the national language. 28 Quijano, "El movimiento campesino." 29 Aníbal Quijano Obregón, "Contemporary Peasant Movements," in Elites in Latin America, ed. S. M. Lipset and A. Solari, p. 307. Gerrit Huizer notes that rural revolutionary movements often grew out of narrowly focused land-invasion movements ("Peasant Organizations"). 30 Quijano, "El movimiento campesino."

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175

If this is true, we might expect that the leaders of more-modernized communities would be more radical and militant than the officials of traditional Quechua comunidades.31 Second, I anticipated that villages with relatively radical leaders would be more prone to seize land and to organize peasant organizations than were communities with less militant officials. To test these hypotheses I would have liked to interview the men who were comunidad officials at the time of the village mobilization (1963-1964). However, since I was unable to do this, my elite sample was drawn from men who were community leaders in 1969.32 Indicators of the Political Orientations of Community Leaders. My study of elite political attitudes focused on three related areas: (1) Political Affect. To what extent have village leaders been satisfied with their community's socioeconomic and political situation since the time of the rural unrest? Comunidad officials were asked several questions concerning their present level of satisfaction, or political affect.33 (2) Alienation. Several questionnaire items were designed to measure village leaders' orientation to the political system as a whole and to ascertain whether they felt alienated from that system. Did the informants believe that the state had any interest in the peasantry? If not, to what did the respondents attribute this? Finally, what means did they think should be used to increase the government's concern for the comuneros? These questions were used to create an index of alienation. (3) Perceived Class Conflict. Did community officials believe that government was controlled by an economic elite whose interests conflicted with the peasantry's? Did respondents feel that local economic elites were exploiting their village? Such questions were used in constructing an index of perceived class conflict. Each of these three indices has been used as a partial measure of 31

Since I did not have biographical data on comunidad officials, I could not correlate their individual socioeconomic levels with their political attitudes. 32 In some villages, particularly in Cuzco, there was considerable overlap between the men who held office during the invasions and the men that I interviewed in 1969. However, those fortunate situations were not very prevalent. 33 Gabriel A. Almond and Sidney Verba define political affect as a set of generalized attitudes toward the political system (The Civic Culture, pp. 6 3 - 8 4 ) .

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radical political orientations. In other words, peasant radicalism is defined here as a multidimensional set of attitudes characterized by dissatisfaction with one's socioeconomic situation (or the condition of one's village); disaffection with governmental policy outputs; low systems affect (i.e., dissatisfaction with the political system as a whole); a perception of inherent class conflict between the peasantry and a power elite; and an inclination toward the use of nonlegitimate political behavior. Before proceeding to an analysis of the political orientations of village leaders, let us examine the indices above in greater detail. 1. Political Affect (Level of Present Satisfaction or Dissatisfaction ). I had anticipated that the affective orientation of community leaders toward the political and economic condition of their village would be influenced by the community's previous political behavior. Since the struggle for land had precipitated peasant mobilization in the early 1960's, I was particularly interested in gauging the attitude of comunidad officials toward their land seizure and its outcome. Informants from comunidades that had participated in invasions were asked whether the seizure had been successful and whether they felt it had given the villagers sufficient land for their needs. These questions revealed that invading villages in the central highlands had been far more successful than had the comunidades of Cuzco. Most of the communities in Junín and Pasco that had seized haciendas kept part of the land. In Cuzco, however, invaders were usually driven off with no gains. Virtually all the leaders of towns that had successfully invaded indicated that the seizure had been somewhat beneficial to the community. However, in only three of those villages (out of 21 that had invaded) did informants feel that their community now had enough land to meet its needs. Comunidad officials were also questioned about government outputs toward their village and toward the peasantry in general. Did the informants believe that the Belaúnde administration had benefited the village? Had the Peruvian government done anything since the wave of highland invasions to aid the nation's peasantry? Responses to these questions were fairly divergent. Comunidad spokesmen in Junín and Pasco generally felt that Belaúnde had helped the sierra peasantry, while Cuzco's village leaders expressed deep bitterness and disillusionment over the president's failure to

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fulfill promises to the campesinos. Most respondents in both Cuzco and the Center expected the military to help the comunidades more than Belaúnde had. 34 However, a significant minority felt that the national government had not done anything for the peasantry in the past and was unlikely to do anything for them in the future. Said one such leader: "The government has no interest in us. Their concern is only with the rich."35 Answers to each of these questions were rated on a 4-point scale, ranging from extreme satisfaction to extreme dissatisfaction. The combined score for all four questions (4—16 points) was used to create an index of political affect.36 2. Alienation. A second, closely related, set of attitudes that I wished to investigate concerned the more-general orientations of community leaders toward the political system. I was particularly interested in knowing whether village mobilization in the early 1960's was associated with a sense of political alienation and a general willingness to engage in nonlegitimate forms of political activity. Comunidad leaders were asked: "In general, is the national government concerned with the problems of the comunidades? If not, why doesn't the government do more?" Responses reflected a wide range of attitudes. Some village leaders felt that the government had done the most it could for the comuneros. At the other end of the spectrum were informants who insisted that the government had no interest in the peasantry, because it was controlled by the hacienda owners. Many village leaders expressed opinions that lay between these two extremes. For example, some believed that the government was mildly concerned with the comunidades and had not done more because of inefficiency and stupidity. Responses to each of these two questions were ranked on a scale of 1-4 according to the degree to which they reflected satisfaction 34 Most of my interviews were conducted prior to the time the junta had promulgated its agrarian-reform law. At the time of the survey, the military government had not yet extended any aid to the comunidades. Yet, my informants were optimistic about the government's intentions. Shortly thereafter, the agrarian-reform law was issued and the comuneros optimism turned out to be well founded. 35 Interview with a comunidad leader in Pasco. 36 See Appendix A for a discussion of criteria used in ranking villages.

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or dissatisfaction with the existing political system (a score of 4 represented great dissatisfaction). Those informants who expressed reservations about the government's rural policies were then asked how they thought the peasants might change them. What means might be used to pressure the government to increase its concern for the indigenous communities? Some village leaders felt that nothing could or should be done; others insisted that campesinos must act strictly within the law and limit themselves to peaceful petition; while still others indicated that strikes or nonlegitimate means should be used to pressure the political system if need be. 37 Once again responses to the two questions were scored from 1 to 4 according to the degree to which they expressed a willingness to operate by means that were not condoned by the existing political system. The combined score of each community on all four responses was used to place that village on an index of alienation toward the political system. 3. Index of Perceived Class Conflict. Finally, I was interested in knowing whether village mobilization was associated with a consciousness of class conflict in the political system. Did village leaders feel that the state was controlled by an elite whose interests conflicted with the peasantry's? Informants were asked: "Who exercises political power in this [i.e., the village's] region?" "Who exercises political power in Peru?" Responses to these questions were quite interesting. A substantial majority of the village leaders in all three departments indicated that political power in Peru was held by the landowners or the rich. Thus, there was clearly some perception of a power elite. Yet, when asked about power relationships in their home region, respondents often named the subprefecto ("lieutenant governor") or "nobody in particular." Contrary to my expectation, respondents were likely to perceive a wealthy power elite in Lima and less prone to see one in their own provinces. Since most village leaders felt that the national government was controlled by the hacendados, I asked whether they felt there was an inherent conflict between the interests of the comunidades and "Obviously, some informants might be reluctant to admit that they favored the use of nonlegitimate or illegal political tactics. Yet, it appeared that the more-radical village leaders were not afraid to discuss this possibility.

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179

those of the landlords. Virtually all the informants answered affirmatively. Thus, there was no evidence of paternalistic bonds that might mitigate class conflict between local hacendados and the indigenous communities. Even the leaders of communities that had not mobilized during the land-seizure movement felt that peasant and landlord had incompatible interests. Two final questions were asked. First, "If a dispute were to occur between a comunidad and a hacendado, on whose behalf (if anybody's) would the government intervene?" Second, "Did the informants feel exploited by local merchants and other members of the local economic elite?" Virtually all village leaders believed that in almost any landlord-community conflict, the government would intervene on behalf of the hacendado. The second question evoked more divergent responses. On the whole, community leaders in Cuzco were more likely to feel exploited by local economic elites than were informants in Junín and Pasco. Responses to all five questions were scored from 1 to 4 according to the degree to which they indicated that the political and economic systems were controlled by an elite whose interests conflicted with the comuneros'. The total score for these questions was used to rate community leaders on an index of perceived class conflict. The Correlates of Peasant Radicalism. Earlier I indicated that my three indices of the political orientations of community leaders would be used as indicators of peasant radicalism. I had expected that informants' level of present dissatisfaction (i.e., low political aflFect), alienation, and perceived class conflict would be positively correlated with one another. 38 Tables 7.19, 7.20, and 7.21 indicate that there was a fairly strong positive correlation. Comunidad officials who were highly dissatisfied with their village's economic and political position also tended to be alienated from the political system and to have a high sense of conflict with the hacendados.

38 Throughout the remainder of my analysis, I have described political affect (see pp. 175-177, above) in terms of the informant's level of present dissatisfaction. A high level of present dissatisfaction is equivalent to a low level of political affect. I have made this conversion so that this variable can be more easily compared to alienation and perceived class conflict. In this new form all three variables should be positively correlated.

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Similarly, alienation and perceived class conflict were clearly related attitudes. TABLE 7.19 Present Dissatisfaction and Alienation of Community Leaders Level of Present Dissatisfaction Medium High Low (No.) (%) (No.) (No.) (%) (%) 6 21 3 55 36 5 36 5 6 4 43 36 3 43 6 1 21 9 14 100 14 100 100 11 Tau-c = .303

Alienation Low Medium High Total

TABLE 7.20 Present Dissatisfaction and Perceived Class Conflict of Community Leaders Perceived Class Conflict Low Medium High Total

Level of Present Dissatisfaction 1Low Medium High (No.) (No.) (%) (No.) (%) (%) 67 8 36 5 7 1 43 6 33 5 1 8 3 3 21 60 9 25 12 100 100 14 100 15 Tau-c = .426

TABLE 7.21 Alienation and Perceived Class Conflict of Community Leaders Perceived Class Conflict Low Medium High Total

Low (No.) (%) 9 64 1 7 4 29 14 100

Alienation Medium (No.) (%) 21 3 43 6 36 5 100 14

High (%) (No.) 10 1 40 4 50 5 100 10 Tau-c = .324

Thus, present dissatisfaction, alienation, and perceived class conflict tend to produce a unidimensional measure of radicalism among community leaders. I had anticipated that radicalism would be positively associated with village mobilization. Tables 7.22, 7.23,

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and 7.24 demonstrate that communities whose leaders scored high on each of my measures of radicalism were more likely to have invaded hacienda lands in the early 1960's. In fact, there is a strong positive correlation between invasions and perceived class conflict (see Table 7.24). TABLE 7.22 Present Dissatisfaction of Community Leaders and Land Seizures

(%) No seizure Seizure Total

50 50

100

Level of Present Dissatisfaction High Medium Low (No.) (No.) (%) (No.) (%) 79 11 6 20 3 21 3 6 80 12 14 100 1 5 100 12 Tau-c = .306

TABLE 7.23 Alienation of Community Leaders and Land Seizures

No seizure Seizure Total

(%) 57 43

100

Low (No.) 8 6 14

Alienation Medium (No.) (%) 54 8 46 7 100 15

High (%) (No.) 20 2 80 8 100 10 Tau-c = .289

TABLE 7.24 Perceived Class Conflict of Community Leaders and Land Seizures

No seizure Seizure Total

(%) 71 29

100

Low (No.) 10 4 14

Perceived Class Conflict Medium (%) (No.) 50 6 50 6 100 12

(%) 26 74

High (No.) 4 11

100 15 Tau-c = .409

In Tables 7.25, 7.26, and 7.27 we observe that peasant radicalism was also associated with the comunidades' level of organization. Where village leaders were more alienated, dissatisfied with the

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of Peasant

Mobilization

town's situation, and antagonistic toward nearby hacendados, communities were more prone to organize sindicatos or join regional peasant federations. In fact, all the highly organized communities had leaders with high levels of alienation and present dissatisfaction. In short, my initial hypotheses were confirmed. Both forms of peasant mobilization (seizures and organization) were positively correlated with peasant radicalism. TABLE 7.25 Present Dissatisfaction of Community Leaders and Community Organization Extent of Community Organization Low Medium High Total

(%) 33 67 0 100

Level of Present Dissatisfaction Low Medium High (No.) (%) (No.) (%) (No.) 29 7 4 1 4 71 67 10 10 8 0 26 0 0 4 12 100 100 14 15" Tau-c = .310

TABLE 7.26 Alienation of Community Leaders and Community Organization Extent of Community Organization Low Medium High Total

(%) 22 78 0 100

Low (No.) 3 11 0 14

Alienation Medium (No.) (%) 4 27 73 11 0 0 100 15

(%) 0 60 40 100

High (No.) 0 6 4 10

Tau-c =.368 TABLE 7.27 Perceived Class Conflict of Community Leaders and Community Organization Extent of Community Organization Low Medium High Total

(%) 36 64 0 100

Low (No.) 5 9 0 14

Perceived Class Conflict Medium (No.) (%) 25 3 67 8 8 1 100 12

High (No.) 1 11 3 15 Tau-c = .268

(%) 7 73 20 100

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183

Modernization and Peasant Radicalism. Let us turn now to my second set of hypotheses. I had expected peasant radicalism to be positively correlated with social and economic development. In other words, I felt that comunidad leaders from more-modernized villages would have a more-radical set of political orientations than had the leaders from traditional communities. Contrary to my expectations, I discovered a negative correlation between social development and radicalism. Leaders of the backward Quechua comunidades expressed the greatest dissatisfaction with government policy outputs, community landholdings, and hacendado behavior (Tables 7.28, 7.29, and 7.30). For example, half of the most socially backward communities had leaders who expressed strong present dissatisfaction. Only 20 percent of the leaders of the most-developed comunidades were equally dissatisfied (see Table 7.28). Similarly, Table 7.30 indicates a strongly negative relationship between social development and the perceived class conflict of community leaders. I had anticipated that landowners would have more paternalistic bonds with Indian communities than with cholo villages. However, my data showed that this was not the case. If anything, modernization in the village seems to have reduced the comuneros' class consciousness. TABLE 7.28 Social Development and Present Dissatisfaction of Community Leaders Level of Present Dissatisfaction Low Medium High Total

Low (No.) (%) 3 25 25 3 50 6 100 12

Social Development Medium (No.) (%) 5 26 37 7 37 7 100 19

High (%) (No.) 40 4 40 4 20 2 100 10 Tau-c = —.178

If we turn to an examination of radicalism and economic development, we find that once again my expectations were not confirmed (Tables 7.31, 7.32, and 7.33). Thus, 50 percent of the informants in economically advanced communities were not particularly dissatisfied with their village's political situation or its landholdings; no informants from the most-backward communities shared this

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184

Mobilization

lack of dissatisfaction (Table 7.31). Similarly, the leaders of backward villages were three times as likely to be highly aHenated as their counterparts in developed comunidades (Table 7.32). Earlier we saw that village mobilization was negatively associated with social and economic development. We now find the same to be true of peasant radicalism. TABLE 7.29 Social Development and Alienation of Community Leaders ]Low

Alienation Low Medium High Total

(%) 9 54 37 100

(No.) 1 6

4

11

Social Development Medium (%) (No.) 35 6 41 7 24 4 17 100

High (%) (No.) 60 6 20 2 20 2 100 10 Tau-c

-.292

TABLE 7.30 Social Development and Perceived Class Conflict of Community Leaders Perceived Class Conflict Low Medium High Total

Low (No.) (%) 3 25 4 33 42 5 12 100

Social Development Medium (No.) (%) 6 32 26 5 8 42 100 19

High (%) (No.) 50 5 30 3 20 2 100 10 Tau-c = —.335

TABLE 7.31 Economic Development and Present Dissatisfaction of Community Leaders Level of Present Dissatisfaction Low Medium High Total

Low (No.) (%) 0 0 27 3 73 8 100 11

Economic Development Medium (No.) (%) 26 4 54 8 20 3 100 15

High (No.) (%) 50 7 21 3 29 4 100 14 Tau-c = —.401

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185

Mobilization

TABLE 7.32 Economic Development and Alienation of Community Leaders

Alienation Low Medium High Total

(%) 27 27 46 100

Low (No.) 3 3 5 11

Economic Development Medium (%) (No.) 50 7 21 3 29 4 100 14

High (%) (No.) 29 4 57 8 14 2 14 100 Tau-c = —.114

TABLE 7.33 Economic Development and Perceived Class Conflict of Community Leaders Perceived Class Conflict Low Medium High Total

(%) 18 27 55 100

Low (No.) 2 3 6 11

Economic Development Medium (%) (No.) 48 7 26 4 4 26 100 15

High (%) (No.) 33 5 33 5 33 5 100 15 Tau-c = —.123

Outside Contact and Peasant Radicalism. How can we explain these unexpected relationships? What were the factors that radicalized the leaders of traditional Indian comunidades? Might it be that the contacts that village leaders in Cuzco and other backward regions had with urban radicals affected the comuneros' political attitudes? In their study of rural radicalism in Chile, Petras and Zeitlin observed that villages whose members worked in nearby copper mines were more likely to vote for radical candidates than were villages in a control group. The authors suggested that peasants who had worked with the leftist miners had returned home and radicalized their fellow villagers. Ultimately, outside contacts broke down the isolation of the peasant villagers and produced a greater sense of class consciousness.39 Similarly, Denton Morrison maintains that, as a traditional village increases its contacts with the modern urban sector of the nation, peasants feel a greater sense of relative deprivation, which 39 James Petras and Maurice Zeitlin, "Miners and Agrarian Radicalism," American Sociological Review 32 (August 1967): 578-586.

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may radicalize them politically.40 Morrison's hypothesis is consistent with Daniel Lerner's observation that traditionals who are exposed to the mass media are able to empathize with ways of life other than their own.41 Consequently, I felt that leaders of comunidades with a high rate of outside contact would have more-radical political orientations than the leaders of isolated communities.42 I expected that outside contacts would lead village officials to reject the existing economic and political order and to perceive their villages as being exploited by a wealthy power elite. Yet, once again, my expectations were not confirmed. The correlations between outside contact and alienation or perceived class conflict were not very strong. Moreover, the associations were negative rather than positive (Tables 7.34 and 7.35). Thus, community officials from relatively TABLE 7.34 Outside Contact and Alienation of Community Leaders

Alienation Low Medium High Total

(%) 16 46 38 100

Low (No.) 2 6 5 13

Level of Outside Contact Medium (No.) (%) 36 4 6 54 9 1 11 100

High (%) (No.) 46 6 23 3 31 4 100 13 Tau-c = —.197

TABLE 7.35 Outside Contact and Perceived Class Conflict of Community Leaders Perceived Class Conflict Low Medium High Total

(%) 27 33 40 100

Low (No.) 4 5 6 15

Level of Outside Contact Medium (No.) (%) 36 4 18 2 45 5 11 100

(%) 46 38 16 100

High (No.) 6 5 2 13

Tau-c 40

—.189

Denton E. Morrison, "Relative Deprivation and Rural Discontent in Developing Areas: A Theoretical Proposal." 41 Daniel Lerner, The Passing of Traditional Society. "Again, outside contact was measured by the percentage of villagers with radios and the rate of travel to nearby cities.

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isolated villages (i.e., those with low outside contacts) were over twice as likely to have a high sense of class conflict as were the leaders of comunidades with high outside contacts (see Table 7.35). In short, my hypotheses regarding the correlates of peasant radicalization, like my hypotheses concerning the correlates of peasant mobilization, were not supported by the data. Quite to the contrary. More-traditional economically backward and isolated communities tended to be more radical, just as they seemed to be more mobilized. Many of my findings seemed to contradict the basic tenets of much of the existing literature on peasant politics. In the succeeding chapter, I will posit a theory of peasant political mobilization that will attempt to explain some of these seeming anomalies.

8. A THEORY OF PEASANT MOBILIZATION

This study of Peruvian peasant communities started in the village of Punabamba, high in the Cuzco sierra. Only a few inhabitants of that comunidad spoke Spanish, and even fewer were literate. The village had no school of its own, and only the most determined youngsters walked the rugged trails each day to the elementary school five kilometers away. In short, Punabamba was the type of backward Quechua community that we would not expect to mobilize politically. Yet, its villagers did organize a sindicato and peacefully regained some of their lands from an adjoining hacienda. We have seen that Punabamba's mobilization was not unique. Many other isolated underdeveloped communities joined peasant organizations and seized latifundio lands. In fact, contrary to my expectations, such villages were more likely to mobilize than were relatively modernized communities and tended to have more radical leadership. How do we explain the relationships that have been found between socioeconomic development and mobilization? Have the data contradicted some of the basic tenets of the literature on peasant political behavior? Have I discovered a major village movement that deviated from prevailing patterns of rural mobilization? My experience in Punabamba provided me with several insights into the unanticipated relationships that I have been describing.

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189

As I noted earlier, while Punabamba was one of the most-traditional communities that I visited, it was not totally isolated from the outside world and from the process of social change. The president of the junta comunal had lived in Lima for several years before returning to his village. He followed national news on his radio and had a lively interest in the modern world (though he told me, with a smile, that the other comuneros who owned radios listened to popular music rather than newscasts). In the course of our informal conversations, he asked whether everybody in Cuba was forced to work and wondered why the United States was sending satellites around the earth. The president's son, a young man of thirty, was already a village leader because he had served in the Peruvian army and could read Spanish. Both father and son were more worldly than were the village's other comuneros. However, several additional villagers occasionally traveled to the city of Cuzco or had lived briefly on the coast. All the communities that I studied had at least a few men like these. Each village had some children who attended elementary school, and most towns had their own school with at least two years of elementary education. As I spoke to the leaders of various mobilized communities, I observed that all of them had experienced some exposure to modern urban life, which had significantly influenced their political attitudes and behavior. President Belaúnde's promises of land reform had reached most of the sierra during his campaign. Belaúnde's candidacy had created expectations of change and had convinced many village leaders that their next president would take a permissive attitude toward land seizures. After the election, comunero leaders heard reports on the radio of land invasions that had started in other parts of the country or in neighboring villages. In their travels to nearby cities, they learned of new campesino unions and federations. Finally, many communities that I studied—even the more-traditional o n e s had some contacts with students or lawyers in the department capital. Thus, various types of outside contact were closely associated with the growth of peasant mobilization. Even the most backward comunidades that I studied had leaders who had assimilated some elements of the national culture and language. Aníbal Quijano maintains that such leadership is crucial in a successful peasant

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movement: "The cholo is an agent of socio-cultural innovation in the peasant mass. . . . He is an agent for penetration of the global culture into the peasant culture. . . . He influences the spread and development of group consciousness among the indigenous peasantry . . . and contributes to the modification of traditional, apathetic . . . peasant consciousness."1 In truth, very few Peruvian peasant communities in the 1960's were still fully isolated and traditional. During the preceding two decades nearly all comuneros had experienced some contact with the modern world or knew fellow villagers who had. Perhaps the only remaining fully isolated and traditional peasants were the southern hacienda peons whose patrón still controlled nearly every aspect of their lives. It appears that such fully traditional peasants are not likely to mobilize. The village unrest of the early 1960's occurred only after a fifteen-to-twenty-year period of varying degrees of socioeconomic development and modernization in nearly all the sierra's comunidades. Furthermore, mobilization is still unusual among feudal hacienda peons. For the most part, peasant federations were unable to link comuneros with the campesinos on neighboring estates. 2 In short, the lack of significant peasant mobilization in the comunidades twenty years ago and the continued lack of unrest on the traditional haciendas in the 1960's suggest that some modernization and outside contact are indeed necessary for peasant movements to develop. 3 What I am suggesting, then, is a three-stage model of modernization and development in the comunidades of the highlands. 1 Aníbal Quijano Obregón, "La emergencia del grupo cholo y sus implicaciones en la sociedad peruana," pp. 75-76. 2 There were some instances of mobilization among hacienda peons. Héctor Martínez Arellano describes a Cuzco hacienda where peasants organized a sindicato and peacefully gained the land, though they were all illiterate and none of them could speak Spanish. See Martínez, "La Hacienda Capana," Perú Indígena 10, nos. 24-25 ( 1 9 6 3 ) : 37-64. See also pp. 88-89 and 102-111, above. 3 There were significant differences between the social positions of hacienda peons and very traditional comuneros. The members of the former group were much more isolated from each other and were more rigidly controlled by their patrón (see Chapter 3, above). However, neither group was prone to mobilization.

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Mobilization

191

1. Traditional Communities. In these isolated villages none of the comuneros speak Spanish. There is very little contact with the outside world, and those contacts that exist are mediated through the local hacendado and his allies.4 Agriculture is at the subsistence level and the village is relatively self-sufficient economically. Comuneros are barely aware of the process of change in other parts of the country. 2. Transitional Communities. Here the few cholos in the comunidad control leadership positions. A small number of villagers travel to nearby cities or live outside the community. Commercialization of agriculture has begun, and there is some trade with nearby market towns. Comuneros are increasingly conscious of their inferior social and economic position and have developed a sense of relative deprivation. 5 3. Integrated Communities. In these villages virtually all the male adults speak Spanish, and most are literate. Most villagers travel frequently to the provincial or departmental capitals, and many have been to Lima. The village economy is fairly commercialized, and comuneros use goods manufactured outside the community. Fifteen or twenty years ago many highland villages were fully traditional. Today, however, this is relatively rare. The more-backward indigenous communities in my survey sample were actually transitional communities and were already experiencing change prior to their political mobilization. Thus, my data do not deny the role of socioeconomic change in the process of peasant mobilization; quite the contrary. However, they do indicate that there is not a linear relationship between modernization and political mobilization. Rather, that relationship seems to be curvilinear. Mobilization and radicalization are least likely to occur in fully traditional and isolated villages. Transitional communities are the most volatile and potentially radical. And highly integrated communities are somewhat less likely to mobilize or to be highly alienated from the political system (see Fig. 8.1). 4 See Julio Cotler, "La mecánica de la dominación interna y del cambio social en la sociedad rural," in Perú problema, by José Matos Mar et al., pp. 153-197. 5 See Denton E. Morrison, "Relative Deprivation and Rural Discontent in Developing Areas: A Theoretical Proposal."

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192

My study of forty-one indigenous communities obscured this curvilinear relationship because there were few remaining communities in the fully traditional category at the time of the landrecovery movement, and none were included in my sample. Hence, since the data only revealed a part of the curve in Figure 8.1 (the right two-thirds), it appeared that modernization and mobilization were inversely related. Figure 8.2 indicates the kind of relationship discussed in the preceding chapter. Obviously I cannot confirm this hypothesis with data, since my sample did not include any communities in the fully traditional group. Yet, the absence of significant village mobilization in the early 1950's (prior to extensive social change in the sierra) and the limited mobilization of hacienda colonos in the 1960's seem to support my contention.

Fig. 8.1. Modernization and Mobilization

Fig. 8.2.

From Transition to Integration

A Theory of Peasant Mobilization Socioeconomic Development

and Village

193 Solidarity

Why should a curvilinear relationship exist? There is little in the existing literature that points to such an association or explains it. Why should a transitional comunidad be more prone to mobilization and radicalization than a cholo village? In traveling to the less-developed Quechua communities of Cuzco, I was struck by the high level of cooperation and unity within the villages. When my research assistant and I arrived in the village of Mollebamba, the comuneros were in the midst of their potato harvest. The crop was gathered cooperatively in a wellorganized system of labor exchange.6 After sundown, all the villagers in one work group returned to the home of the community president where they ate jointly; the evening was spent talking and drinking chicha (a popular mildly alcoholic beverage of the sierra). The members of the junta comunal readily agreed to be interviewed. However, they insisted that all the comuneros had equal authority to speak for the village, and, consequently, any villager who wished to do so must be allowed to participate. The interview was conducted the next morning, prior to the start of the work day, in the presence of over one hundred comuneros. Many of the more-modernized cholo communities in Junín and Pasco also showed evidence of a high level of internal unity. In Pasco, I was shown several public projects that had been completed through volunteer labor. To be sure, most of the communities that I studied had a high level of internal cooperation and unity. 7 But there seemed to be a greater degree of village solidarity in the underdeveloped Indian comunidades. Consequently, I suspected that socioeconomic development and extensive contacts with 6 For a discussion of cooperative activities in Peruvian comunidades, see Ulrich P. Ritter, Comunidades indígenas y cooperativismo en el Perú, pp. 21-72 (especially pp. 44-48). 7 Earlier, I discussed Edward Banfield's description of amoral familism in an Italian peasant village (see Chapter 6, above, n. 70). The villagers that Banfield studied rarely trusted or cooperated with any person outside their family. Anthropologists, such as George Foster, indicate that mutual mistrust is common in peasant communities (see Chapter 3, above, n. 24). I found no evidence of this in Peruvian comunidades.

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A Theory of Peasant Mobilization

the national culture had reduced internal solidarity in the modernized communities. In order to test this hypothesis, I constructed a scale of internal solidarity based on five variables: religious composition of the comunidad; percentage of Quechua speakers; equity of land tenure within the village; number of community social clubs; number of days of fiesta. Wesley Craig's study of mobilization in La Convención suggested that community solidarity was inversely related to the percentage of Protestants in the population. 8 In several of the villages in my own survey, key informants indicated that differences between Protestants (called evangélicos) and Catholics were a source of tension in the comunidad. Consequently, I ranked each village low, high, or medium, according to the percentage of evangélicos in the community. 9 Craig also expected that solidarity would correlate positively with the percentage of Quechua speakers in the community.10 The bond of a common language that set the comuneros apart from the national culture created a greater feeling of village unity. Here again, comunidades were ranked low, medium, or high, according to the number of Quechua speakers. Survey pretesting had indicated that sharp differences within the comunidad in the size of family landholdings often led to internal conflicts.11 Consequently, villages were categorized as low, medium, or high, in terms of the extent of inequalities of landholding. Finally, pretesting also indicated that internal solidarity might be reflected in the number of social clubs and fiestas that a comunidad organized. Clubs and fiestas were the centers of social life 8

Wesley W. Craig, Jr., From Hacienda to Community, pp. 78-79. Criteria for ranking all the variables in this chapter (i.e., the cutting-points) are described in Appendix A. 10 Craig, From Hacienda to Community, pp. 73-82. In Craig's study the relationship was somewhat curvilinear. 11 Craig notes that, when the Agrarian Reform Agency surveyed landholdings in La Convención in 1963-1965, it "gave rise to bitter relations between peasants over the true boundaries of their parcelas" (ibid., p. 7 2 ) . An unpublished survey of comunidades by Ulrich Ritter and Héctor Martínez indicated that comuneros within a single village often disputed each other's land claims. 9

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in many sierra villages. A village survey by Ulrich Peter Ritter and Héctor Martínez found that many comunidades had an impressive array of sports clubs, women's groups, veterans' clubs, and the like.12 These clubs served as a useful indicator of how dynamic village life was in a particular community. Similarly, the various fiestas that most comunidades hold throughout the year also help bring the comuneros together. Consequently, the villages in my study were ranked low, medium, and high in terms of the ratio of clubs to community population and the number of days per year of fiesta.13 Village rankings on the percentage of Quechua speakers, the number of clubs per capita, and the number of fiesta days per year correlated positively with each other. These three variables were negatively associated with the percentage of Protestants and the degree of inequity in landholdings. Therefore, communities with few Quechua speakers, few clubs and fiestas, many Protestants, and great inequity in land tenure were given a score of 1 for each of these variables. Scores of 2 and 3 were assigned accordingly for each factor (i.e., higher levels of Quechua speakers, clubs, and fiestas, and lesser levels of Protestants and land inequity). Thus, composite scores for the five variables ranged from 5 to 15 points. Villages could then be ranked low (5-8 points), medium (9-12), or high (13-15) on an index of internal solidarity. If we examine the relationship between social development and internal solidarity, we see a mildly negative correlation (Table 8.1). Forty percent of the most socially developed communities had a

12 Unpublished survey of 750 comunidades by Ritter and Martínez under the auspices of the Instituto Indigenista. Some of the results are found in Ritter, Comunidades. 13 William F. Whyte and Lawrence K. Williams claim that fiestas may be a cause for dissension within a village because the large expense is a heavy burden on the comuneros (see Whyte and Williams, Toward an Integrated Theory of Development, pp. 1 8 - 2 3 ) . While this may be true, the fiesta does bring the members of the community together in joint activity. Many comuneros who have migrated to the coast return for their village's fiestas. Generally, my interviews with community leaders indicated that fiestas were a good indicator of dynamic activity in the village. This was not as true of the poorest villages in Cuzco, which could not afford them. However, as we shall see, this limitation does not weaken the argument that follows.

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low level of internal solidarity, while only 8 percent of the leastdeveloped villages fell into that category. TABLE 8.1 Social Development and Internal Solidarity Internal Solidarity Low Medium High Total

Low

8 58 33

(No.) 1 7 4

100

12

(%)

Social Development Medium (No.) (%) 6 31 7 37 31 6 19 100

High (%) (No.) 40 4 40 4 20 2 100 10 Tau-c = — .187

Internal solidarity was also inversely related to economic development and to outside contact (Tables 8.2 and 8.3). Thus, low solidarity levels were nearly twice as common among the most economically developed communities (33 percent) as among the least-developed villages (18 percent). Similarly, 40 percent of the villages with low levels of outside contact had high internal solidarity, whereas only 15 percent of the communities with high outside contact were highly solidary. The correlation between outside contact and internal solidarity was somewhat weakened by a polarization of the comunidades with moderate outside contact. Such villages tended to have either very high or very low solidarity.14 In short, the data tend to support my expectation that the process of social change and modernization in an indigenous community reduces internal solidarity.15 As increasing numbers of comuneros TABLE 8.2 Economic Development and Internal Solidarity Internal Solidarity Low Medium High Total 14

Low (%) (No.) 2 18 5 45 4 36

100

11

Economic Development Medium (%) (No.) 4 27 6 40 33 5 100

15

High (%) (No.) 33 5 47 7 20 3 100 15 Tau-c = —.148

The number of cases in this category was small (N = 11). Of course, I can only infer a causal relationship. My data merely show a negative association between these two variables. 15

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TABLE 8.3 Outside Contact and Internal Solidarity Internal Solidarity Low Medium High Total

Low

(%) 13 47 40 100

(No.) 2 7 6 15

Outside Contact Medium (No.) (%) 45 5 2 18 4 36 11 100

High (%) (No.) 30 4 54 7 15 2 100 13 Tau-c - —.201

travel or work outside the community, as more outside peons are hired to help work the land, the social integration of the community begins to diminish. A number of factors may account for this phenomenon. The more-underdeveloped villages that I studied lived on a very slim economic margin. Failure to plant or harvest the crop on time might have brought economic ruin or starvation. Since these indigent villagers were unable to hire outside help, they depended on each other for mutual aid during the planting and harvesting seasons. Thus, in the Peruvian comunidad, great poverty usually induces greater cooperation rather than amoral familism.16 In addition, backward villages rarely received technical or financial assistance from the government. Most state-sponsored community development projects (such as Cooperación Popular, President Belaúnde's version of VISTA) were concentrated in the departments of Junín and Pasco, particularly in the more-developed communities. Consequently, if the comuneros of Cuzco's less-developed areas wished to have a school, an irrigation ditch, or a sheep dip, they would have to build it themselves in community-sponsored work projects.17 Here again, backwardness fostered a greater degree of intravillage cooperation. The commercialization of agriculture—an integral aspect of vil16

See footnote 7, above. A Cornell University study for the Peace Corps suggested that communitydevelopment assistance be given only to those villages that showed a capacity to benefit from it. In general, technical assistance from the Peruvian government and the Peace Corps was not channeled to the most-underdeveloped communities. Part of the reason for this was a shortage of Quechua-speaking agricultural experts. 17

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lage modernization—may also have reduced community solidarity. Such commercialization generally increased economic inequality within the community. The more-developed comunidades usually had greater disparities in landholdings than was common in the Quechua villages. The most-prosperous comuneros used their surplus income from cash crops to purchase land from their poorer neighbors. In other instances they hired fellow villagers (with little or no land) as peons. Finally, the process of development induced greater diversification of the village economy. In the cholo communities of Junín and Pasco, some comuneros left agriculture to become storekeepers, merchants, or artisans. These men were usually more prosperous than the villagers who remained in agriculture. A significant number of the village leaders in the central highlands were store owners, tailors, and artisans.18 As I traveled to various sierra communities, I personally observed the effects of social change. In transitional communities, such as Punabamba or Mollebamba, village leaders had homes that were similar to those of the other comuneros. However, in the more-developed communities, village leaders usually had larger more-comfortable homes than did their fellow comuneros. Thus, socioeconomic development in a peasant community often transformed a fairly egalitarian social unit into a more economically stratified one. In their studies of peasant mobilization in two areas of Peru, Wesley Craig and LaMond Tullis suggest that internal unity was an important prerequisite of successful peasant mobilization.19 And Barrington Moore notes that "on general grounds, it seems obvious that the degree of solidarity displayed by peasants, since it is an expression of the entire network of social relations within which the individual lives out his life, would have an important bearing on political tendencies."20 I believe that the inverse correlation that I observed between development and village solidarity helps 18

Edward M. Dew, Jr., notes that upwardly mobile cholos in Puno tended to be merchants, truck drivers, and so forth. See Dew, Politics in the Altiplano. 19 Craig, From Hacienda to Community; and F. LaMond Tullis, Lord and Peasant in Peru. 20 Barrington Moore, Jr., Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy, p. 475.

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explain the curvilinear relationship between modernization and mobilization. The process of social and economic change in an indigenous community seems to have two conflicting effects on village political behavior. On the one hand, increased contacts with the outside world, greater levels of education, and greater social mobility may increase the peasants' sense of relative deprivation. Similarly, social development may increase the comunero's sense of efficacy and may expose him to more activist or radical ideologies from the urban center. However, at the same time, development beyond a certain point may induce social disintegration of the indigenous community to a point where it is no longer likely to act as a viable or effective unit. In several communities of the central sierra this process of social disintegration was most pronounced. For example, the village of Yurajhuanca in Pasco differed markedly from the unified Quechua villages of Cuzco. All its members spoke Spanish, and most were literate; radios were common; most children completed at least four years of elementary education; and the streets were lit with electricity. Nearly half of the adults in one town worked in the copper mines or in the city of Cerro de Pasco. In fact, Yurajhuanca was so well developed and so integrated into the region's industrial economy that the comuneros who worked outside the village lacked strong attachments to their community. Their economic and social interests and commitments tended to lie elsewhere. In effect, then, internal solidarity was a crucial factor that intervened between the independent variables of socioeconomic development and the dependent variable of political mobilization. Carrying out a dramatic action, such as a land seizure, required a very high level of unity within the community. A village, such as Yurajhuanca, that had developed to a point where social disintegration had begun was unlikely to mobilize as a unit. Comuneros in the more-developed villages entered the political system individually. That is to say, the cholo comuneros of the more-modernized villages were more likely to become voters and to exercise their rights as citizens than backward Indians were. 21 However, they were less likely to mobilize and act as a collective unit. 21

In general, a cholo peasant who is dissatisfied with his landholdings or socioeconomic position has a far-wider range of options than does his Indian counterpart. Since he can read Spanish, he may work more effectively through

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Finally, villages with a large number of emigrants and many members who worked in nearby cities or mines were less prone to seize lands simply because these outside contacts provided alternative means of employment that served as a pressure valve for peasant unrest. Village Modernization and the Nature of Outside Contact. We have seen that the leaders of underdeveloped comunidades tended to be alienated from the political system; they were also more likely than their counterparts in modernized villages to support illegal or nonlegitimate means of political protest. To understand this relationship we must once again examine the process of change through which transitional communities move from isolation and traditionalism to modernity. Quechua communities, such as Punabamba and Quiulacocha, were experiencing the early stages of commercialization and contact with the nonpeasant world. In his study, Peasant Wars in the Twentieth Century, Eric Wolf notes that the introduction of the village into the wider capitalist market created serious disequilibrium and traumas in peasant society. "Capitalism cut through the integument of custom, severing people from their accustomed social matrix in order to transform them into economic actors, independent of prior social commitments to kin and neighbors. . . . This liberation from accustomed social ties . . . constituted the historical experience which Karl Marx would describe in terms of 'alienation.' . . . Thus, paradoxically, the very spread of the capitalist market principle also forced men to seek defenses against it."22 Karl Polanyi also discusses the threat that capitalist commercialization poses to the social fabric of peasant society: "Robbed of the protective covering of cultural institutions, human beings would perish from the effects of social exposure."23 The leaders of transitional communities whom I interviewed frequently expressed their deep dissatisfaction with their comthe political system. He is more likely to be able to convince government officials of the strength of his case. Or he may leave the land, since he has the requisite tools for finding work elsewhere. Because Indian comuneros lacked these options, they might have felt that militant unrest was the only course open to them. In fact, this perception was often correct. 22 Eric R. Wolf, Peasant Wars in the Twentieth Century, pp. 277-282. 23 Karl Polanyi, The Great Transformation, p. 73.

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munities' outside contacts. They frequently charged local merchants with exploiting their community; villagers allegedly received unduly low prices for their crops and paid high prices for manufactured goods. Some of the bitterness and frustration that these men expressed may have been based on purely subjective perceptions. However, transitional villages generally did experience great difficulties in their commercial dealings with outsiders. Because villagers were unable to transport their crops to larger market towns (where they could receive better prices), they were at the mercy of local merchants. Moreover, nearby mestizo villages exploited the transitional peasant communities in a variety of ways. Often, comuneros were required to contribute free labor to publicworks projects in the district capital (though their village did not benefit from such projects). These pernicious effects of the early stages of outside contact partially explain the high level of dissatisfaction, alienation, and perceived class conflict in the transitional communities that I studied. The leaders of comunidades with a greater degree of development and outside contact were usually more satisfied with those contacts. Village leaders in the cholo communities of Junín and Pasco did not feel exploited by local merchants. Their community may have owned a truck, which permitted them to move their crops to the market with the highest purchasing price. Furthermore, peasants in the more-developed communities often had sufficient skills and education to find employment in nearby cities or mines. A Model of Peasant Mobilization. What I am suggesting, then, is that there are two necessary, though not sufficient, conditions that may induce a peasant community to seize a hacienda or organize a sindicato. First, comuneros must believe that they are being exploited in their social, economic, and political contacts with the modern world. If villagers feel that a neighboring hacienda has taken their land, if they feel exploited by merchants, police, and other members of the local mestizo power structure, they are more likely to be radicalized and mobilized. Second, if the comunidad is to translate its disaffection into political unrest, it must retain enough of its traditional solidarity to be able to act as a unit. Like internal solidarity, the comuneros9 perceptions of their relations with the outside world serve as an intervening variable be-

Level of Internal Solidarity High

Level of Development and Outside Contact Virtually none Traditional Village

Perception of Outside Contact Passive acceptance of control by a "patrón"; hacendado paternalism isolates village from outside world

Limited Transitional Village

Sense of exploitation by political and market systems

High

High: high level of alienation and high solidarity present maximum likelihood of mobilization

High Integrated Village

Greater satisfaction: more opportunity for employment outside community; better relationships with political and market systems

Lower

Moderate: lower solidarity reduces likelihood of mobilization; if mobilization takes place, it is likely to be less radical

Fig. 8.3.

A Typology of Development and Mobilization

Probability of Village Mobilization Low: culture of domination and tradition inhibit mobilization

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Mobilization

tween the level of development (and outside contact) and the political behavior of the community (Fig. 8.3). Mobilization and the Pattern of

Latifundism

In the preceding chapter, I noted that there was a moderate correlation between village mobilization and radical political attitudes. Thus, leaders of communities that participated in land seizures were over twice as likely to have a high level of perceived class conflict (53 percent) as officials of villages that had not invaded (20 percent). (See Table 8.4.) However, the leaders of communities that seized hacienda properties were not always politically radicalized. Only 38 percent were highly alienated from the political system (Table 8.5). TABLE 8.4 Land Seizures and Perception of Class Conflict Perceived Class Conflict Low Medium High Total

No Seizure (No.) 50 10 6 30 4 20 100 20

(%)

Seizure (No.) 19 4 28 6 53 11 100 21 Tau- c = .409

(%)

TABLE 8.5 Land Seizures and Alienation Alienation Low Medium High Total

No Seizure (No.) 44 8 8 44 2 11 18 100

(%)

(%) 28 33 38 100

Seizure (No.) 6 7 8 21 Tau-c = .289

I have argued previously that transitional communities more likely to engage in land seizures and tended to be more cal than integrated comunidades. But why were leaders of invading villages highly radicalized while others were not? can we account for the invading communities whose leaders not alienated (28 percent of the mobilized villages)? My

were radisome How were data

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indicate that the leaders of mobilized comunidades in Cuzco were far more radical than their counterparts in Junín and Pasco. Over 60 percent of the Cuzco comunidad officials were highly alienated from the political system, while only 20 percent in Junín and 9 percent in Pasco were equally alienated (Table 8.6). Perceived class conflict was also far higher in Cuzco than in the Center (Table 8.7). TABLE 8.6 Alienation: By Department Alienation Low Medium High Total

Cuzco (No.) 0 0 37 3 63 5 100 8

(%)

Junín (No.) 40 8 8 40 4 20 100 20

(%)

Pasco (No.) 55 6 36 4 9 1 11 100

(%)

TABLE 8.7 Perceived Class Conflict: By Department Perceived Class Conflict Low Medium High Total

Cuzco (No.) 0 0 37 3 63 5 ~8 IÕÕ

(%)

Junín (No.) 35 7 5 25 8 40 TOO 20

(%)

Pasco

(%) 54 31 15 100

(No.) 7 4 2 13

Why were land seizures more closely associated with radicalization in Cuzco than in either Junín or Pasco? I believe that the different patterns of latifundismo in the southern and central sierra partially explain this relationship. We have seen that the large estates surrounding peasant villages in Cuzco were quite different from the ranches of the Center (Chapter 2 ) . Cuzco's haciendas were semifeudal, while the large sheep estates of Junín and Pasco were usually modern capitalist enterprises. Consequently, Cuzco's hacendados symbolized an overriding culture of domination that had deeply embittered the region's emerging comuneros.24 Cuzco's transitional villages were not merely taking back their lands when they participated in hacienda invasions; they were also revolting 24

See Cotler, "La mecánica de la dominación"; see also Chapter 3, above.

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against a long history of political and economic subjugation that had been imposed on them by the hacendado and allied elements of the local power structure. In Junín and Pasco the situation was somewhat different. There the latifundios were owned by large companies, such as Cerro de Pasco and the Algolán Corporation. The sheep ranches had encroached on lands that the comuneros claimed as their own. But the latifundistas had never dominated the neighboring villages as intensely as in the South. Even transitional Quechua communities in the central sierra had enjoyed more impersonal relationships with the neighboring latifundios. Consequently, the invading villages of the Center were far less bitter than were their counterparts in Cuzco. Their leaders were less alienated and had a lower perception of class conflict. Thus, in completing my model of peasant mobilization, I am adding a second independent variable, the pattern of latifundism surrounding the community. The level of socioeconomic development and outside contact and latifundio patterns were important correlates of peasant mobilization and radicalization. If we examine the matrix in Figure 8.4, we see that Peruvian peasant communities might theoretically fall into one of nine possible situations. Thus, Categories 1, 4, and 7 encompass fully traditional villages in areas of traditional feudal haciendas, traditional communities adjacent to more-modern semicapitalistic haciendas, and traditional villages in areas without latifundios. The same three possibilities exist for transitional communities and for integrated villages. Categories 1-3 (in Figure 8.4) pertain to southern departments, such as Cuzco, Ayacucho, and Huancavelica, that are characterized by traditional haciendas. As I have indicated earlier, my survey data did not include any villages in Category 1 (the fully traditional communities), since few of them existed in the 1960's even in the mancha india. However, historical evidence and the experiences of feudal hacienda peons indicate that fully traditional peasants are unlikely to mobilize. They are too well controlled by the local power structure and have not experienced the sense of rising expectations brought on by contact with the modern world. My data suggested that transitional villages in an area like Cuzco (Category 2) are among the most politically volatile. These com-

Pattern of Latifundism

Traditional feudal haciendas

"Minifundio" (no latifundios)

Level and Nature of Outside Contact and Socioeconomic Development Limited High (Transitional Village) (Integrated Village) Comuneros perceive limited outside Comuneros more satisfied with outcontacts as exploitative and unsatisside contacts; less perception of exfactory ploitation

Virtually None (Fully Traditional Village) Village's few outside contacts mediated through local hacendado

1. Low probability of mobilization or radicalization Village solidarity high, but strict control by hacendado and isolation from outside world inhibit mobilization

2. High probability of mobilization: high alienation and radicalization Combination of high village solidarity and dissatisfaction with outside contacts produces volatile situation

3. Low probability of mobilization: low alienation and radicalization High level of migration and outside contact reduces land pressures; extensive outside contact and development bring social disintegration

4. No mobilization

5. Possibility of mobilization icalization

6. Very little likelihood of tion or radicalization

7. Situation

or

radicalization

does not exist

Semicapitalistic agriculture

F i g . 8.4.

8. High probability low alienation

of

and rad-

mobilization;

A M o d e l of P e a s a n t Mobilization

mobiliza-

9. Little likelihood of mobilization or radicalization Absorption of village into national economic system

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munities maintained the high degree of internal solidarity typical of traditional villages, and they were alienated by their initial contacts with the national political and economic systems. Such circumstances are most likely to produce community mobilization, alienation, and radicalization. Finally, in the more-developed integrated communities of Cuzco and the South (Category 3 ) , higher levels of emigration and economic opportunities outside the village reduced community solidarity, thereby limiting the possibility for group mobilization. Since the leaders of these more-developed communities were usually more satisfied with their village's outside contacts, they were less radical politically. Categories 7-9 include areas, such as Pasco and Junín, where the dominant latifundios were comparatively modern semicapitalistic sheep estates owned by foreign or Peruvian corporations.25 Since there were no fully traditional villages in areas adjoining haciendas, Category 7 is merely a theoretical construct.26 However, there were a significant number of transitional comunidades in the central sierra (Category 8). Like the transitional villages of the South, these communities had a high degree of internal solidarity and were dissatisfied with their relations with the outside world. They, too, were likely to mobilize; however, they tended to be less alienated and radical than did Cuzco's transitional villages because they had not been as exploited by adjoining haciendas. Like their counterparts in Cuzco, the more integrated communities of Pasco and Junín were less likely to mobilize than transitional villages (Category 9 ) . They had been fairly well absorbed into the national system and were relatively stable politically. The Influence of the Political System on Radicalization. Thus, the differing latifundio systems of the central and southern highlands produced a high level of alienation and perceived class consciousness in Cuzco's mobilized comunidades and limited militancy among the invading villages in Junín and Pasco. Several additional 25

See Chapters 2 and 5, above. By the time relatively modern sheep estates were established in the central sierra, there were no longer any fully traditional comunidades in the vicinity. To the extent that fully traditional villages still exist, they are in the mancha india, not the Center. 26

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characteristics of the Peruvian political system reinforced these trends. To begin with, the more-isolated peasants of Cuzco often turned to outsiders for aid in organizing village sindicatos and regional federations. Many outside organizers were children of comuneros who were studying at the University of Cuzco. Others were sympathetic lawyers or urban union leaders in the departmental capital. Most of these urban advisers espoused radical political ideologies—Trotskyism, Fidelismo, or orthodox communism. It is quite likely that they influenced the political attitudes of village leaders. 27 If we examine the course of peasant mobilization in Junín and Pasco, we find that students and other outsiders exerted less influence on the movement. Although comuneros in the central highlands did receive some help from the miners' and metal workers' unions, the peasant movement was generally controlled by village leaders. Moreover, when outsiders did influence the political attitudes of comunidad officials, that influence was generally moderate. Urban union leaders and lawyers in Junín and Pasco were usually members of APRA or Acción Popular. 28 Because radical students were active in the South, the Belaúnde administration was far more apprehensive about peasant unrest in that region than about mobilization in the Center. For the most part the government pursued a conciliatory policy aimed at coopting the peasantry in Junín and Pasco. In Cuzco, however, Belaúnde committed his administration to crushing the rural unrest (see Chapter 5). While his policy successfully intimidated the southern peasants, it also reinforced their alienation from the political system. Finally, it is important to recognize that the villages of Junín and Pasco were more capable of securing their goals within the political system. Central villages that seized hacienda lands often had ties with APRA or Acción Popular. Regional leaders of those 27 It is interesting to note that in the southern department of Puno a number of peasant federations were set up with the aid of progressive priests and Christian Democratic organizers. The village movement was very moderate, and few communities seized lands. 28 There were some active radicals in the Center—refinery workers from APRA Rebelde and Genaro Ledesma, leader of the Community Federation. However, they espoused a moderate position in their dealings with the comunidades.

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two parties were committed to seeking support from the peasantry and offered it some assistance. Often, when an invasion took place in the central sierra, local political leaders interceded to protect villagers from violent police repression. This did not happen in Cuzco. 29 Consequently, it was far more difficult for Cuzco's peasantry to reach a compromise with the government over the land issue. When Belaúnde's land-reform bill was stalled in Congress, he unilaterally issued a limited reform decree that affected the areas of greatest unrest in Junín and Pasco but did not affect Cuzco. Both the national and departmental governments opened negotiations with community leaders in the Center after the outbreak of peasant unrest. Such negotiations were not held in the South. In short, to some extent Cuzco's peasants were forced into a moreradical position. Government policies reinforced their already high level of alienation. Being unable to use the legitimate political system to gain land, they were more receptive to nonlegitimate means of political expression. Peasant Behavior in Regions without "Latifundios" I have included in my model a third group of community situations with a very different environment than the villages that I have discussed up to this point (see Fig. 8.4). In certain regions of the Peruvian highlands—such as the departments of Arequipa and Cajamarca— few communities carried out land seizures, simply because large haciendas were not as prevalent in those regions. Much of the land was owned by peasant communities or by small and medium-sized independent farmers.30 Because my study focused on conflicts between indigenous communities and latifundios, I did not collect data on the villages in Categories 4-6. However, my interviews and investigations of newspaper archives indicated that there was less village mobilization in these areas. Obviously, there were fewer land seizures in regions of low hacienda concentration. Furthermore, peasant federations and sindicatos were not nearly as prevalent as in Cuzco, Junín, or Pasco. Finally, comunidades in such regions as Arequipa and Cajamarca rarely established political con"See Chapter 5, above. 80 A number of land invasions did take place in the areas of Cajamarca where there were latifundio-community tensions. However, the general level of mobilization was far lower in areas where latifundios were not dominant.

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tact with students, urban unions, or other radical urban elements of the kind that were so important in Cuzco (and of less import in Pasco and Junín). In short, both mobilization and radicalization of peasant communities are less likely in areas with low concentrations of latifundios. Various social scientists have pointed to the close association between land distribution and peasant unrest. Samuel Huntington notes that nations with a high percentage of the labor force employed in agriculture and a high Gini index of land-tenure inequality are more prone to peasant unrest. 31 Conversely, many land-reform bills introduced in Latin America or other developing areas have been conscious attempts to deradicalize the peasants and reduce their revolutionary potential. Huntington argues that "where the conditions of land-ownership are equitable and provide a viable living for the peasant, revolution is unlikely. Where they are inequitable and where the peasant lives in poverty and suffering, revolution is likely, if not inevitable, unless the government takes prompt measures to remedy these conditions. No group is more conservative than a landowning peasantry and none is more revolutionary than a peasantry which owns too little land" 32 Naturally, my investigation supports the contention that land tenure is an important determinant of peasant political behavior. However, the relationship between land distribution and peasant mobilization is more complex than Huntington suggests. His statement indicates that Iatifundism is virtually a necessary and sufficient condition for radical peasant mobiUzation. Conversely, it implies that agrarian-reform programs will invariably prevent peasant revolution: "Land reform . . . turns the peasantry from a potential source of revolution into a fundamentally conservative social force."33 The model of peasant mobilization that I have presented indicates that equitable distribution of land is neither necessary nor sufficient for inhibiting radical, peasant political mobilization. As a transitional village passes (from Categories 2 or 8) into a more31

Samuel P. Huntington, Political Order in Changing Societies, pp. 382-383. Ibid., p. 375; italics added. 83 Ibid., p. 376. I may be overstating Huntington's case somewhat. But, I do not believe that I am distorting his basic position. 32

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integrated relationship with the outside world (Categories 3 and 9), community mobilization and radicalization are likely to decrease even if the land-tenure situation is not altered. Such communities may still desire more land and may feel hostility toward neighboring hacendados, but they are less likely to have highly alienated leaders and probably lack the level of internal solidarity that is necessary for village mobilization. In short, the revolutionary potential of a community may decrease without land reform if it is otherwise integrated into the national economic and political systems. Conversely, a redistribution of latifundio lands to the peasantry— either through government-sponsored land reform or through peasant-initiated occupations—may merely conservatize the peasantry temporarily and in no way precludes radical peasant mobilization in the future. Category 5 of my model posits a transitional community in a region that does not have significant latifundism and in which there is fairly equal distribution of land (see Fig. 8.4). Would such a community be likely to mobilize or to produce radical leadership? Is it true, as Huntington suggests, that peasants with sufficient landholdings are inevitably conservative and passive? My model indicates that, if a community's leaders perceive their outside political and economic relations as being unsatisfactory and exploitative, that community is likely to mobilize and radicalize regardless of land-tenure arrangements. A clear example of this phenomenon exists in the valley of La Convención, where Hugo Blanco helped organize one of Peru's first modern peasant movements. By 1963 most haciendas in the valley were, as a result of seizures and governmental reform laws, totally in the hands of the peasantry. Yet in 1969 the area still had one of the most dynamic and militant peasant federations in Peru. In fact, La Convención was one of the only provinces in Cuzco in which the Confederación Departamental de Campesinos del Cuzco was still a viable and functioning peasant organization. In 1969, six years after the capture of Hugo Blanco and the promulgation of an agrarian-reform decree in the valley, I witnessed a large May Day demonstration in the capital city of Quillabamba. Perhaps three to four thousand peasants marched to the town square with banners demanding Blanco's release and an end to payments

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for the land.34 My interviews with leaders of the La Convención peasant federation indicated that they were far more militant than peasant leaders elsewhere in the country and far more willing to resort to nonlegitimate means of protest if necessary. The valley's peasants were embittered by the agrarian-reform decree of 1963 that required them to pay annually for the land they received. Since most of those lands were in the hands of the campesinos before the state acted, the government's decree merely forced peasants to pay for land they already controlled. The tenants felt that the land was theirs and that any payments for it were unwarranted. Consequently, many of them went to the regional agrarian-reform office, ripped up the documents that supposedly gave them the land, and told government functionaries that they had no intention of making further payments. An examination of agrarian-reform programs in other nations also indicates that redistribution of the land and the elimination of latifundios does not necessarily conservatize the peasantry. In Bolivia, for example, the peasantry seized most of the haciendas after the 1952 revolution or received land through the agrarian reforms of 1953. Yet the campesinos in such areas as Cochabamba remained mobilized, and there is still great potential for peasant unrest. Peasants in Bolivia and elsewhere who have received new landholdings may still be dissatisfied with the prices they are receiving for their produce in the market. They may also be unhappy with the level of technical aid and services they are getting from the government. Many of the village leaders with whom I spoke in the central highlands of Peru were more concerned about inadequate government aid for education, roads, water supply, and tools than they were about land. In short, peasant unrest may well occur among communities that feel they are not integrated into the national economic and political systems, even after land reform has been carried out. My data suggest that village leaders are likely to be most dissatisfied with outside contacts when there is merely a limited amount of such contacts (i.e., in transitional communities). However, outside contacts and perceived exploitation are only moderately correlated. For example, in La Convención, the level of socio34 Subsequently, Blanco, Pedro Candela, and other leftist peasant organizers in La Convención were released on Christmas, 1970.

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213

economic development and outside contact is now relatively high. Yet, peasants still feel dissatisfied with those contacts. Since their qualitative perception of outside contacts is a more-salient influence on mobilization than is their quantitative level of contacts, such campesinos would fall into Category 5 of my model rather than Category 6. Peasant Unrest and the Process of Change. An interesting aspect of the model that I have offered is that it affords a means of tracing changes in the village's environment (i.e., variation in its ecological correlates) through the matrix in Figure 8.4. During the 1950's, large numbers of comunidades in the southern highlands moved out of fully traditional isolation (Category 1) into more developed status with limited outside contact (Category 2). As we have seen, this process was probably the most important agent in promoting radical peasant unrest in the highlands. The transitional comunidades of Cuzco and the mancha india were generally the most politically volatile and explosive in the nation. Southern communities that passed through this stage into a more fully integrated relationship with the political-economic system (Category 3) were usually less alienated, less solidary, and less prone to unrest. The introduction of more-modern sheep estates into the departments of Junín and Pasco moved many communities from Category 1 (fully traditional communities surrounded by feudal haciendas) to Category 8 (transitional communities surrounded by semicapitalist latifundios). This often produced peasant mobilization of a less-militant or radical variety. In time, many of these villages developed more-intensive and subjectively satisfactory contacts with the outside world (Category 9), thereby reducing the likelihood of unrest. The campesino movement in La Convención involved several ecological changes. Initially, the peasants who voluntarily migrated to the valley enjoyed a satisfactory relationship with the outside world even though they had become hacienda peons (Category 3 ) . They were unusually well educated and were able to sell their coffee directly to the market at steadily rising prices. In the late 1950's the valley's hacendados tried to restrict these outside contacts by forcing their tenants to sell coffee directly to the patrón. Consequently, the peasants felt exploited and were radicalized (Category

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2). Through their subsequent mobilization, the campesinos gained their lands, but they resented the land payments that the government required them to make (Category 5 ) . Their dissatisfaction over this issue provided additional momentum to the movement in that region. Gerrit Huizer suggests that government land-reform programs are most likely to occur as a result of peasant unrest—that is, when large numbers of communities in a particular region are in a transitional stage of socioeconomic development (Categories 2 and 8). 3 5 If a land-reform program merely succeeds in redistributing lands without otherwise affecting the village's outside political and market contacts, transitional communities will simply be moved into Category 5 (transitional villages in a minifundia environment) and may well mobilize at a future date. Such communities may still perceive their relationship with the national political-economic system as being exploitative, despite the land reform. Only if land reform also integrates the community into the national system is it likely to permanently alleviate peasant unrest (Category 6 ) . Finally, the Peruvian experience of the mid-1960's indicated that, if communities have passed into a high level of integration with the national system (Categories 3 and 9 ) , the government is unlikely to initiate land reform, because it is not pressured to do so by peasant mobilization. Even though the hacienda system is highly inefficient and a drain on agricultural productivity, the Belaúnde administration undertook land reform only in areas of great peasant unrest (Categories 2 and 8). 36 Conclusions My study of peasant unrest in Cuzco, Junín, and Pasco provided data on only four of the eight possible situations described by my model (one other situation exists only as a theoretical possibility). Gathering data on fully traditional communities (Categories 1 and 4) is very difficult today since such villages have virtually disappeared from the sierra. Thus, the theories and hypotheses that I have offered must remain tentative. 35 Gerrit Huizer, "Peasant Organizations and Agrarian Reform in Latin America." 36 See Ginny Rose, "La reforma agraria: Sus avances y sus defectos."

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Nevertheless, my data indicate that the literature on peasant mobilization and radicalization concentrates too heavily on agents of change that affect the village from without. More stress should be placed on the traditional village structure and its influence on internal solidarity.37 Moreover, I believe that a clearer distinction needs to be made between the correlates of individual political participation and the correlates of group mobilization. There is little doubt that, as comuneros become more assimilated into the national culture, they are more likely to participate individually in the political system. Cholos who can speak and read Spanish will probably vote and may identify with a political party. Illiterate Indian villagers have not been permitted to vote in Peru. Consequently, they have little opportunity for individual political participation. Their interest in politics is also more limited. In short, individual peasant political participation has a linear relationship with socioeconomic development. On the other hand, the relationship between modernization and group mobilization (i.e., joint activity of the comunidad) is curvilinear. Moreover, group mobilization of transitional villages has far different implications for the political system than the individual political participation of villagers in integrated comunidades. The latter process has generally been supportive of the system and poses no immediate threat to the state. Campesinos in integrated communities generally voted for moderate parties, such as Belaúnde's Acción Popular or APRA. The group mobilization more prevalent in transitional communities tends to pose a greater challenge to the political system since it frequently follows nonlegitimate channels, such as land seizures.38 Finally, my data suggest an added dimension of the process of 87 Barrington Moore offers a valuable discussion of this factor in his general work on the peasantry and social change, Social Origins. 38 An analogy might be drawn to the American civil-rights movement. During the early 1960's, Dr. Martin Luther King and other moderates stressed the integration of individual blacks into the political and socioeconomic systems. Usually, the most educated, assimilated, bourgeois blacks pressed hardest for integration. In the late 1960's black-power movements stressed the mobilization of blacks as a bloc rather than individual integration. Such group mobilization affects less-assimilated blacks (i.e., less middle class) and, consequently, involves a more-dramatic challenge to the political system.

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socioeconomic development and modernization. Samuel Huntington's Political Order in Changing Societies notes that political unrest and disorder are greatest in transitional nations, those in the midst of the process of change. I believe that this observation may be partially explained by the fact that transitional peasant communities are far more volatile and prone to radical mobilization than are either traditional or integrated communities.

9. THE PEASANTRY AND THE NATIONAL POLITICAL SYSTEM

In their study The Civic Culture, Gabriel Almond and Sidney Verba classify the dominant political orientations of several nations in terms of "the frequency of different kinds of cognitive, affective and evaluative orientations toward the political system in general, its input and output aspects, and the self as a political actor."1 The authors offer a typology of political cultures based on three ideal types of orientations—the "parochial," "subject," and "participant" cultures. 2 The first type is exemplified by "African tribal societies and autonomous local communities" whose members have virtually no "expectations of change initiated by the political system." A member of a parochial culture "may be aware in a dim sort of way of the existence of a central political regime. But his feelings toward it are uncertain or negative, and he has not internalized any norms to regulate his relations to it."3 Ciro Alegría, the great Peruvian novelist, wrote of sierra peasants of the 1920's and 1930's who were barely aware of the nation in which they lived. Some villagers remembered rival armies that had passed through their town many years before, one calling itself Chilean and the 1

Gabriel A. Almond and Sidney Verba, The Civic Culture, p. 16. There are three other cultures derived from these three: the "parochial-subject," "subject-participant," and "parochial-participant" (ibid., pp. 16-26). 3 Ibid., p. 17. 2

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other Peruvian. Beyond this they knew little of this thing called Peru. 4 Thus, it is likely that many of the community leaders that I interviewed were only one or two generations removed from an archetypal parochial set of orientations. The subject culture constitutes the second major set of political orientations. "The 'subject' is aware of specialized governmental authority: he is affectively oriented to it, perhaps taking pride in it, perhaps disliking it; and he evaluates it either as legitimate or as not. But, the relationship is t o w a r d . . . the output, administrative or 'downward flow' side of the political system; it is essentially a passive relationship." 5 According to Almond and Verba, a low level of subjective competence is often the source of this passivity. That is to say, the subject does not feel that he is capable of influencing or affecting governmental decisions.6 Many studies of contemporary peasant society depict the peasant as highly fatalistic and lacking any sense of personal efficacy. "In such a fearful world [one] cannot count on achieving anything by his own effort and enterprise. The conditions and means of success are all beyond his control. He may struggle to get ahead, but in the end he will probably be crushed by the insane fury of events."7 This alleged fatalism carries over into the peasant's political attitudes, according to many scholars. The Indian peasant, says Phyllis Arora, "feels at the mercy of the whims of the authorities." 8 In addition to being fatalistic, the peasant is allegedly highly individualistic and, consequently, virtually incapable of joining with others in a common endeavor. Edward Banfield wrote that the villagers of Montegrano, Italy, were unable "to act together for their common good or, indeed, for any end transcending the immediate, material interests of the nuclear family."9 Almond and Verba indicate that an individual who is not oriented toward working with others will have a limited sense of 4

Ciro Alegría, Broad and Alien Is the World. Almond and Verba, Civic Culture, pp. 18-19. 6 Ibid., pp. 136-139. 7 Edward C. Banfield, The Moral Basis of a Backward Society, p. 107. 8 Phyllis Arora, "Patterns of Political Response in Indian Peasant Society," Western Political Quarterly 20 (September 1967): 654. 9 Banfield, Moral Basis, p. 10. 5

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political efficacy. That is to say, the passive political subject lacks the participant's capacity to enlist the support of others when he wishes to influence government policies. Thus, peasant individualism and amoral familism allegedly supplement fatalism in reducing the peasant's sense of efficacy toward the input aspect of politics. In short, much of the existing scholarship on peasants suggests that their cultural attitudes toward the political process serve as a barrier to effective political participation. Thus, David Chaplin has contended that the Peruvian campesino is "often his own worst enemy."10 A number of the items on my village questionnaire were designed to probe this thesis. I particularly wished to evaluate the comunidad's political culture to determine whether it was primarily parochial, subject, or participant. Village leaders were asked whether they felt that indigenous communities, acting jointly, could influence or alter governmental policies that affected the peasant. As in many previous cases, the village leaders of Junín and Pasco responded rather similarly, while Cuzco's informants had a lower sense of political competence. Over 50 percent of the respondents in Junín believed that peasant communities could appreciably influence the government either by acting alone or, if need be, with the help of outsiders. 11 Less than one-third of the village leaders in that department thought that the comunidades were totally without influence (Table 9.1). 12 In Pasco the results were similar. Twenty-five percent of the respondents felt that peasants could significantly influence governmental decisions; 37 percent thought that they could exercise a small degree of influence, while only 37 percent believed that the comunidades had no influence at all. By contrast, half of the village leaders in Cuzco stated that peasants could not influence the government, and the remaining informants believed that such influence was quite limited (the number of responses [N] for Cuzco and Pasco 10 David Chaplin, "Peru's Postponed Revolution," World Politics 20 (April 1968): 413. 11 The question was open-ended, but responses were rated along the fourpoint scale indicated in Table 9.1. See Appendix A for a discussion of the criteria used in all village rankings in this chapter. 12 A11 data used in the tables in this chapter are based on my interviews of community officials.

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TABLE 9.1 Community Leaders' Perception of Their Villages' Political Influencea Cuzco (No.) (%) 0.0 0

Can influence policies Can influence policies 0.0 with outside help Can influence policies 50.0 slightly Cannot influence 50.0 policies Total 100.0 a

Junín (No.) (%) 15.5 3

Pasco (No.) (%) 12.5 1

0

37.0

7

12.5

1

3

15.5

3

37.5

3

3 6

32.0 100.0

6 19

37.5 100.0

3 8

The table excludes "don't know" responses.

on this question are very small, and, consequently, Table 9.1 should be viewed with caution). Table 9.1 appears to indicate a higher level of subjective competence among village leaders than I had expected to find.13 In order to test the strength of this apparent sense of efficacy, I asked informants whether they felt that comunidades could exert sufficient political pressure on the government to alter its policies. This time the responses were quite different. Only in Junín did a significant percentage of village leaders respond affirmatively (Table 9.2). In Cuzco, 80 percent of the people who answered this TABLE 9.2 Community Leaders' Perception of Their Villages' Capacity to Exert Political Pressure

Can exert pressure Can exert pressure occasionally Can never exert pressure Total 1

(%) 0

Cuzco (No.) 0

Junín (%) (No.) 47 9

(%) 20

Pasco (No.) 2

20

1

21

4

30

3

80 100

4 5

32 100

6 19

50 100

5 10

'Community officials probably had a greater sense of political competence than did the average peasant. Yet, I was still surprised at the high number of positive responses to my question.

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question felt that no such pressure could ever be applied (the Ν in Cuzco and Pasco was quite small). With the possible exception of those in Junín, village leaders responded far less affirmatively to this question than they had to the preceding one. The officials of one comunidad in Pasco were typical in this respect. They initially stated that the indigenous communities could influence government policies toward the peasantry. However, when asked whether comuneros could exert pressure on the state, they replied: "Certainly not! How could we do that? We merely present our requests to the Ministry of Indigenous Affairs and hope that they will be listened to." Many informants were shocked at the idea of trying to pressure the government. Said a village president in Junín, "Oh, no, we could get thrown in jail if we tried that." In Cuzco reactions were even more negative. One community leader summed up the prevailing sentiment in that region: "That [exerting pressure]," he said, "would be a very dangerous thing to do." I believe that the responses to my second question on political efficacy demonstrate that most community officials did not believe that their villages had significant political competence. While many informants initially indicated that comuneros could influence governmental policies, subsequent questions revealed that they viewed this influence as a very passive process. In fact, they tended to approach the input aspects of the political system as humble petitioners.14 One community official in Pasco stated, "We can only bring our petitions to the government... and wait, and hope." That attitude was much like the one observed by Phyllis Arora in rural India. She notes that "the peasant in his role as petitioner represents a . .. traditional pattern of response to external authority. This pattern, too, continues to affect the peasant's political behavior, hindering his capacity to assume his civic identity. Historically, he assumed this posture before bureaucrats such as district officers. . . . The great majority of peasants considered that only supplication or petitioning would convey a request, and even then, 14

Almond and Verba asked respondents in their survey about their subjective competence vis-à-vis national and local government (Civic Culture). Since the Peruvian government is highly centralized, I did not investigate attitudes toward local government.

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they felt results were dependent upon the whim of the officer."15 Only one-third of the village leaders in the three departments (11 of 34 communities) believed that peasants could function as a pressure group (see Table 9.2). Most of these officials (9 of the 11) were from Junín. Community leaders in Junín had the greatest confidence in their villages' political capacities; Pasco's informants had a lower sense of political efficacy; and Cuzco ranked lowest on this dimension.16 What accounts for the generally low level of subjective competence among village leaders (as indicated in Table 9.2)? Why did Cuzco's comunidad officials have a significantly lower sense of political efficacy than officials in the other two departments? 17 Almond and Verba demonstrated that "the more education that an individual has, the more likely he is to consider himself capable of influencing the . . . government."18 I expected that a similar relationship would exist in the highland comunidades. Could the pessimistic orientation that many community officials had toward poli15

Arora, "Patterns," p. 653. The responses from Junín were probably distorted by circumstances that I have previously mentioned. My surveys of Cuzco and Pasco were conducted in April and May of 1969, during the seventh and eighth months of Peru's new military government. At that time the junta had not made clear its policies toward the peasantry. Therefore, the responses of community officials to these questions were probably based on their evaluations of the Belaúnde administration, which had only recently been deposed. The Junín survey, however, was carried out in late June, shortly after the military had promulgated a far-reaching agrarian-reform law. Consequently, respondents were very well disposed toward the government at that time and probably felt a momentarily inflated sense of efficacy. Had my study been conducted before the reform law or several months later when the euphoria over the bill had diminished, I believe that responses in Junín would not have been significantly different from Pasco's (though both departments would have shown greater subjective competence than did Cuzco). If this assumption is correct, the normal level of subjective competence in the sierra was lower than my data indicate. Since Junín's comunidades accounted for nearly 50 percent of my sample, any distortion in those responses (caused by the reform law) would affect the total sample. 17 When I speak of the "subjective competence" or the "sense of efficacy" of village leaders, I am referring to the informant's perceptions of his village, not about his own political efficacy. Thus, I am using the term subjective competence in a somewhat different sense than Almond and Verba used it. 18 Almond and Verba, Civic Culture, p . 161. 16

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tics be explained by their low educational level? Since levels of literacy and education were far lower in Cuzco than in the central sierra, might we not expect village leaders in the South to feel less politically efficacious? Unfortunately, I did not include items in my questionnaire that could directly test this hypothesis. However, the survey did permit me to investigate a closely related question. I had expected a positive relationship between a community's level of social development and the degree of political influence that its leaders felt the village could exert. A scale of subjective competence was created using the two questions, discussed earlier, that deal with the community leaders' sense of political efficacy. Respondents were rated from 1 to 4 according to the degree to which they felt that comunidades could "influence governmental policies" and according to the degree to which they felt that they could "pressure" the national government. 19 Thirty-three villages were rated high ( 7 - 8 ) , medium ( 5 - 6 ) , or low (2-4) according to their leaders' subjective competence. This scale was then correlated with the level of community social development. 20 Contrary to my expectations, there was only a weak positive association between social development and the subjective political competence of village leaders (Table 9.3). TABLE 9.3 Social Development and Political Efficacy

Political Efficacy Low Medium High Total

Low (%) (No.) 5 63 12 1 2 25 8 100

Social Development Medium (%) (No.) 27 4 33 5 40 6 100 15

High (No.) 40 4 20 2 40 4 100 10 Tau-c = .124

(%)

The level of subjective competence of village leaders was also correlated with the community's levels of economic development. 21 19 These two variables are discussed in Tables 9.1 and 9.2 and in the accompanying text. 20 See Chapter 7 for an explanation of the scale of social development. 21 See Chapter 7 for an explanation of this scale.

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Here there was a slightly stronger positive correlation (Table 9.4). I had expected that the leaders of poorer communities would feel TABLE 9.4 Economic Development and Political Efficacy

Political Efficacy

Economic Development Low Medium (% ) (No.) (% ) (No.)

Low Medium High Total

63 37 0 100

5 3 0 8

25 33 42 100

3 4 5 12

(% )

38 8

54

100

High (No.)

5 1

7

13

Tau-c = .272

less politically effective, but this proved to only be mildly correct. No doubt the comunero's low level of education and his poverty contribute to his limited subjective competence. Oscar Lewis describes a culture of poverty that produces a low sense of efficacy and a high level of fatalism.22 However, I believe that the relationship between socioeconomic development and subjective competence (as revealed in Tables 9.3 and 9.4) is not sufficiently strong to adequately explain the wide difference between Cuzco and the Center on the latter dimension. Hypotheses that attribute the peasant's low sense of political efficacy to his low educational and economic status suggest that the intervening variable in this relationship is the peasant's fatalistic outlook and his low evaluation of his own capabihties. We have already seen that Edward Banfield, George Foster, Arthur Niehoff, and others take an even stronger position on this question by arguing that peasant fatalism is an inherent cultural characteristic that is largely independent of economic or social levels.23 Studies of comuneros in Peru by Matos Mar, Whyte, and Williams reject the notion that the sierra villager is inherently fatalistic. However, they 22

See Oscar Lewis, La Vida. Banfield, Moral Basis; George M. Foster, "Peasant Society and the Image of Limited Good," American Anthropologist 67 (April 1965): 293-315; Arthur H. Niehoff and J. C. Anderson, "Peasant Fatalism and Socio-Economic Innovation," Human Organization 25 (Winter 1966): 273-283. Fatalism will be defined here as the belief that one is incapable of exercising significant control over one's own future. 23

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225

did find certain areas of the country in which comuneros had a very low sense of efficacy.24 Is it possible, then, that the village leaders' tendency to see themselves as humble petitioners before the government, particularly in Cuzco, stems from an inherently fatalistic strain in the peasant culture? Are peasants the victims of their own limited perspective, as many authors would have us believe? To probe that thesis, I asked comunidad officials whether they felt that social and economic conditions in their community had improved, stayed the same, or gotten worse in the preceding ten years. Second, I asked them whether they expected these conditions to improve, remain the same, or get worse in the future. Contrary to my expectations, most of the informants were quite satisfied with past progress in TABLE 9.5 Perception of Changes in Village Life during the Previous Ten Years Cuzco (No.) (%) Conditions have improved Conditions have remained same Conditions have deteriorated Total

(%)

Junín (No.)

(%)

Pasco (No.)

25

2

75

15

69

9

75

6

15

3

30

4

0

0 8

10

2

0

100

20

100

100

0

13

TABLE 9.6 Expectation of Future Changes in Village Life

Expect improvement Expect no change Expect deterioration Don't know Total

Cuzco (%) (No.) 62 5 12 1 25 2 0 0 8 100

Junín (%) (No.) 85 17 5 1 5 1 5 1 100 20

(%) 69 0 8 22

100

Pasco (No.) 9 0 1 3

13

24 See William F. Whyte, "The Myth of the Passive Peasant: Dynamics of Change in Rural Peru"; José Matos Mar and William Foote Whyte, Proyecto de estudio de cambios en pueblos peruanos; William F. Whyte and Lawrence Κ. Williams, Toward an Integrated Theory of Development.

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their village, and an even larger number were optimistic about the future (see Tables 9.5 and 9.6). Even those village leaders who had not perceived improvement in the past shared in the general optimism about the future. For example, in Cuzco only 25 percent of the informants felt that socioeconomic conditions in their comunidad had improved in the previous ten years (Table 9.5). However, over 60 percent believed that conditions would improve in the future (Table 9.6). Informants in over 75 percent of the comunidades felt that socioeconomic conditions in their village would improve in the coming years (31 of 41 communities; see Table 9.6). Moreover, this optimism was based on the respondents' confidence in their comunidad's capacity to improve its own lot. Those village spokesmen who indicated that they expected community life to improve in the coming years were asked their reasons for feeling this way. The question was open-ended, but responses could readily be assigned to one of three categories: leaders who believed that improved conditions in the village would come solely or primarily out of the comuneros' own efforts, those who stressed both internal efforts and outside assistance, and those who believed that improvements would come exclusively or primarily as a result of external aid. TABLE 9.7 Informants' Reasons for Expecting Improvement in Future Life of Their Communities11 Cuzco (No.)

(%) Efforts of comuneros Internal and external factors External aid only Total

Junín

(%)

100

5

59

0 0 100

0 0

12 29 100

5

(No.) 10 2 5 17

(%)

Pasco (No.)

44

4

33 22 100

3 2 9

a

Asked only of community leaders who expected improvement in future life of their village.

As Table 9.7 indicates, over 60 percent of the optimistic village leaders (19 of 31) felt that future improvements in the community would be totally internally generated (i.e., brought about solely by the comuneros' efforts). Typically, community officials pointed to

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the voluntary village work projects (roads, irrigation ditches, wells, etc.) as the principal factor contributing to improvements in socioeconomic conditions. A number of informants felt that the growth of education in the comunidad would ensure future progress. Thus, the community leaders expressed an unanticipated confidence in their village's capacity to control its own destiny. The informants' low sense of political efficacy (as indicated in Table 9.2) cannot be attributed to a pervading sense of fatalism.25 What about the capacity of comuneros to enlist the aid of others and to cooperate for a common goal? My survey revealed that every one of the communities had organized one or more community work projects annually in which villagers voluntarily participated. Nineteen of the forty-one comunidades had organized purchasing, producing, or marketing cooperatives. Many others expressed interest in organizing cooperatives, but they lacked the funds or the technical capacity. 26 Thirty-four communities had one or more clubs (sports, fraternal, etc.). Of the seven communities without clubs, five wished to organize them, but they lacked funds.27 There was clearly no lack of cooperative effort in the villages that I studied. That is not to say that they were perfectly harmonious. Fifty percent of the informants indicated that there were occasional internal conflicts in their community. But only in two or three villages did such conflicts seriously hamper community projects. Finally, comuneros actively participated in the village politics of most communities that I surveyed. All the villages regularly elected a comunidad council (the junta comunal) and several officers, including president of the junta and personero. Comunidades fre25

Community officials may have a more-optimistic view of the future than do average comuneros. However, at this point I am only interested in comparing the village leaders' perceptions of the future with their sense of political efficacy. 26 Several of the comunidad leaders whom my research assistants and I interviewed asked us for information about establishing cooperatives in the village. It appeared that this is one of the areas where a government-aid program could be of most immediate use to the peasantry. See Ulrich P. Ritter, Comunidades indígenas y cooperativismo en el Perú, for a discussion of cooperatives in sierra communities. 27 Six of the villages without clubs were in Cuzco.

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quently prohibited reelection to these posts. Consequently, there was a high turnover of leadership, which enabled a significant number of comuneros to hold village posts. I observed comunidad elections in the indigenous community of Yanahuanca in the department of Pasco. Unlike in the national elections, all comuneros were qualified to vote regardless of their level of literacy. Virtually all the adult males in the comunidad (and female heads of families) participated in the election. Before the balloting, opposing candidates addressed the villagers, and there was spirited debate. The discussions and the balloting lasted for over four hours, and it was clear that most of the villagers were keenly interested in the outcome. On another occasion I attended a meeting of the junta comunal of Yanacocha, a neighboring Pasco community. Each of the twelve districts in the town sent two or three representatives to the council, which was composed of some thirty men and two or three women. Over fifty comuneros attended the meeting and occasionally participated in the discussion. At the junta gathering, members discussed ways of setting up a marketing cooperative and means of pursuing village land claims in the courts. The president of the junta told me that on certain occasions the entire adult population gathered in a town meeting to discuss important issues. The two indigenous communities that I have just described were relatively sophisticated and developed. In the more-backward communities of Cuzco and the Center, there was less rotation of office and fewer officeholders. However, as we have seen, the level of internal cooperation was probably greater than it was in more developed communities. Community-wide town meetings were held in the most-backward comunidades of Cuzco, and large numbers of adults attended and participated in them. John Murra, an anthropologist with extensive experience in the sierra, maintains that the participatory democracy in many peasant villages has been unparalleled elsewhere in the nation.28 I dare say that the level of participation in the government of many comunidades that I studied was higher than it is in most American small towns. At the village level the Peruvian comunero is an active "participant" who

"Interview with Dr. John Murra, Cornell University, October, 1968.

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is "oriented to . . . both the input and output aspects of the political system."29 The Culture of Repression How can we account for the discrepancy between the high sense of efficacy that my informants expressed regarding internal village matters and their low subjective competence in national politics? Phyllis Arora notes that the Hindu peasant feels helpless in the face of political authority in part because "experience has taught [him] that generally too little benefit is derived from an official's expressed intentions to warrant trust or credulity."30 Many Peruvian village leaders expressed similar disillusionment over President Belaúnde's failure to effect the extensive land-reform program that he had promised. Informants in Cuzco were particularly bitter about police repression of mobilized comunidades, which they attributed to Belaúnde's policies. The peasants' low sense of efficacy also stemmed from their inability to receive redress of grievances in the court system or the bureaucracy when they sought to reclaim village lands from the hacendados. My data indicate that village leaders were neither familistic nor fatalistic. Their sceptical outlook toward national politics was not indicative of a narrow peasant mentality. It was a rational response to a condition of political powerlessness. Gerrit Huizer notes that evidence of the peasant's alleged fatalism and lack of subjective efficacy is often drawn from areas where the campesinos had, in fact, tried to alter their political fates and had been crushed. 31 George Foster's writings on the peasant notion of "limited good" were largely based on field work done in Tzintzuntzan, Mexico.32 But in the 1920's this area experienced peasant uprisings that were severely repressed. Had the peasants of Tzintzuntzan been as inherently fatalistic as Foster claims and were they as distrustful and suspicious of each other as he asserted, it is hard to believe that they could have initiated an uprising against the prevailing power 29

Almond and Verba, Civic Culture, p. 18. Arora, "Patterns," pp. 655-656. 31 I am indebted to Gerrit Huizer for suggesting a number of ideas on this problem. 32 Foster, "Image of Limited Good." 30

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system. Might it not be that the fatalism that Foster observed was a natural response to the repression of their movement? While it is impossible to know whether Foster's observations on Mexican peasants are unduly negative, my data indicate that his findings are not applicable in the Peruvian comunidades that I studied. The comunero's limited sense of efficacy vis-à-vis the national political system is neither the result of a vision of limited good nor of a fatalistic culture of poverty. In Cuzco and, to a lesser extent, in the central highlands, scepticism toward politics is a manifestation of a "culture of repression."33 Having tried to recover their lands and having been crushed by an administration that had previously promised them land reform, comunidad leaders naturally had a jaundiced view of political participation. In Cuzco the long-term effects of the police repressions of 19631964 were apparent. Many village officials were initially very hesitant to talk to me or my research assistants about their land problems or political attitudes lest we were police agents. Others were fearful that we might be leftist organizers seeking to encourage peasant unrest. Having suffered the consequences of mobilization once before, they were hesitant to become involved again. Under these circumstances, the comuneros" fear of involvement was based on prudence, not fatalism. Some of the Cuzco leaders had spent several years in jail for organizing a nonviolent, totally legal sindicato. In some comunidades, villagers were still serving sentences in prison. Only the fact that my research aide was himself a Quechua speaker and the son of a Cuzco peasant convinced certain informants to answer our questions. In several communities where police massacres had occurred in 1964, my associate interviewed villagers by himself since the presence of a "white man" would have inhibited the responses. As I noted previously, when Fernando Belaúnde ran for the presidency in 1963, he appealed to the comuneros for their vote with the promise of land reform and aid to community-develop33

Alan Holmberg noted that the hacienda peons of the sierra live in tremendous fear of hunger, persecution by the police or hacendado, and so forth. He suggested that their lives were tremendously inhibited by a "culture of repression." I believe that this concept could be usefully applied to the Cuzco comuneros. See Alan Holmberg, "La privación psicobiológica y el cambio cultural en los Andes," América Indígena 27 (January 1967): 15-18.

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ment projects. In most of the sierra, particularly in Cuzco, the peasant villagers responded strongly to his appeal and contributed significantly to his electoral victory. Fully two-thirds of the village officials whom we interviewed indicated that their community had supported Belaúnde's candidacy in 1963. In Cuzco, all eight of the villages had voted fairly heavily for him. Had Belaúnde's administration cooperated with Cuzco's burgeoning sindicato movement in 1963-1964, had the government restrained the police in Cuzco as it did in the Center, had the Agrarian Reform Agency under Belaúnde distributed hacienda territories to the land-hungry Cuzco comunidades, the peasants of that region might have developed a high sense of political efficacy. But this did not come to pass. Instead, village leaders were arrested, unions suppressed, and invading peasants evicted. In 1964 the president guided his agrarian-reform program through the Peruvian Congress. It was the first legislation of its kind in the nation's history and was hailed by peasant leaders as a fulfillment of Belaúnde's campaign promises to the serrano comuneros. Cuzco was one of four highland departments (along with Junín, Pasco, and Puno) that were singled out by the bill for immediate reform. Yet, during the remaining five years of the Belaúnde administration not a single hacienda in the highlands of Cuzco was expropriated or redistributed to the peasantry by the government. 34 The government's failure to respond to peasant demands in the South probably contributed heavily to the Cuzco comuneros' alienation and their low sense of efficacy in national politics. Many community leaders there commented bitterly to me about Belaúnde's unfulfilled promises to the campesino. In 1963, Acción Popular had achieved its greatest electoral majorities in the south34

Some land was redistributed in the department, but only in the province of La Convención, which was outside the sierra at the edge of the jungle. The agrarian-reform law fell short of its objectives in all parts of the nation, with only a small percentage of the projected redistribution taking place. Only in Junín and Pasco were significant numbers of haciendas expropriated; many of these were turned into agricultural experimentation centers and never handed over to the comunidades. See Jean Piel, "La situation actuelle de la reforme agraire au Pérou"; and Ginny Rose, "La reforma agraria: Sus avances y sus defectos."

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ern sierra. Five years later many village leaders were sceptical about the utility of the vote. Said one personero: "What good came of voting for Belaúnde? He treated us no better than the other politicians had." Comunidad officials in Cuzco, Junín, and Pasco were asked to name the presidential candidate who had received the most votes in their village in 1963. As I expected, most communities had cast a majority for Belaúnde (see Table 9.8). Support for his candidacy TABLE 9.8 Support for the National Administration: 1963 and 1969 (%) Communities giving a majority vote to Belaúnde in 1963 100 Communities feeling Belaúnde had concern for peasantry (1969) 0 Communities feeling no administration had concern for peasantry (1969) 100

Cuzco (No.)

(%)

Junín (No.)

(%)

Pasco (No.)

8

50

8

61

8

0

0

0

46

6

8

37

6

15

2

was particularly strong in Cuzco. To test Belaúnde's level of peasant support six years after the election, I asked village leaders whether either the Belaúnde administration or the military junta that had succeeded it had demonstrated any concern for the needs of the comuneros. The responses indicated a marked decline in support for Belaúnde in both Cuzco and Junín. Moreover, informants in both those departments seemed quite disillusioned with the possibilities of any government aid. In Pasco, where 61 percent of the communities had given Belaúnde a majority of votes in 1963, almost half the village leaders still felt that his administration had helped the peasantry considerably. However, in Junín, where 50 percent of the comunidades had supported Belaúnde in the 1963 election, 63 percent of the informants had come to feel that the military junta was much more concerned about the peasantry than its predecessor. The remaining 37 percent stated that neither administration had much

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interest in the comunidades.85 In Cuzco, disillusionment with the government was most apparent. All eight villages surveyed there had given a majority of votes to Belaúnde (in most instances they had voted overwhelmingly for him). Yet, six years later every community leader in the department claimed that no Peruvian administration had ever been concerned with the comunidades. The Indigenous Community

and the National Political System

In earlier chapters, I maintained that the Belaúnde administration had reacted to the mass peasant mobilization of 1963-1964 by co-opting the movement in Junín and Pasco, while crushing it in Cuzco. In the central highlands, few comuneros were evicted from occupied haciendas and a number of estates were expropriated by presidential decree, prior to the passage of an agrarianreform law. By contrast, in Cuzco most of the invading comunidades were driven off invaded haciendas by police or special guardia troops. In several instances these evictions culminated in the death of unarmed villagers. Moreover, no haciendas were expropriated in the highlands of Cuzco even after the passage of a bill that called for reform in that region. It is not surprising, therefore, that the Cuzco village leaders should be most disillusioned with the Belaúnde government, have the lowest degree of confidence in the intentions of the state, and feel the lowest sense of political efficacy at the national level. All these attitudes are characteristic of a culture of repression. Why did President Belaúnde act as he did in Cuzco and the southern sierra? Charles Anderson's theory of Latin American politics provides us with a clue. Anderson states that in Latin America: New contenders are admitted to the political system when they fulfill two conditions in the eyes of existing power contenders. First, they must demonstrate possession of a power capability sufficient to pose a threat to existing contenders. Second, they must be perceived by other contenders as willing to abide by the rules of the game, to permit existing contenders to continue to exist and operate in the political system. If the first 35

Once again, the assessment of the military government by village leaders in Junín was probably untypically generous because of the promulgation of an agrarian-reform law shortly before I worked in that department.

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condition is not fulfilled, the power contender will be ignored, no matter what the merits of his case may be. . . . If the second condition is not fulfilled efforts will be made to suppress the new power contender.36 There is little doubt that the first of Anderson's conditions was met by the peasant mobilization of 1963. Editorials in leading Lima newspapers, such as La Prensa and El Comercio, expressed the fears among the nation's economic elite over the threat posed by the highland peasantry's newly found militancy and organization. Anderson's second condition raises a more-difficult question. Did the major political groups in Peru believe that the peasantry could be introduced into the political system without radical disruption of the old order? Belaúnde was under strong pressures from the leading conservative newspapers, the opposition in Congress, the leading economic sectors of the country, and large portions of the military to crush the land movement in the South. Because peasant mobilization in Cuzco and the adjoining states of Ayacucho and Huancavelica was frequently linked with radical student-urban groups in the provincial capitals, conservative power contenders viewed the comunidad movement as a revolutionary threat to their own existence. That is, the established elites did not feel that a mobilized peasantry in the South would be "willing to abide by the rules of the game."37 Was this perception correct? The answer to that question lies in two further questions: First, did the comuneros who were invading haciendas and forming peasant federations in the early 1960's share the revolutionary goals of the student-urban leftists with whom they were occasionally allied? Second, if not, were the comuneros being manipulated by skilled outside agitators? It was impossible for me to answer these questions adequately in a limited village study conducted five years after the mobilization. However, on the basis of the evidence that I was able to 36

Charles W. Anderson, Toward a Theory of Latin American Politics, p. 8; italics added. 37 See Chapter 5, above, for editorial reactions by Lima's La Prensa and El Comercio to the land seizures and the accompanying political mobilization of the peasantry. These papers insisted repeatedly that the rural unrest was part of a revolutionary conspiracy. They exaggerated the role of outsiders in the unrest and refused to acknowledge that the comuneros might seize land on their own initiative.

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gather through my comunidad survey and related research, my firm belief is that the answer to both of these questions is "no." In my interviews I asked village officials to enumerate the types of assistance they would like the government to provide their comunidad. Almost to a man they stressed the need for technical aid (particularly from Quechua-speaking agronomists), tools, equipment for their schools, building materials, and teachers. All these requests indicated the peasants' commitment to gradual and peaceful change. One aspect of the responses indicated how limited the desires of village leaders were. Contrary to my expectations, not a single village official in Cuzco or Pasco said that the government should be giving them land through a land-reform program. This surprised me greatly since many of these communities had unsuccessfully tried to seize lands previously and almost all of them felt that they lacked sufficient amounts of land. It would seem obvious for them to want an agrarian-reform program in their region. When I asked community leaders in Junín about government assistance, respondents in twelve of the twenty villages stated that they wanted land. Why this enormous discrepancy? Again, it must be recalled that my Junín interviews were conducted shortly after the military junta issued a totally unexpected agrarian-reform bill.38 The Cuzco and Pasco surveys were completed before the bill's promulgation. Prior to the junta's decree, the village leaders in Cuzco and Pasco had not felt that agrarian reform was a legitimate demand or one likely to be granted by the existing political system. Therefore, they did not think that it was realistic even to voice a desire for it. However, after the promulgation of the new law, village leaders felt that they could add land redistribution to their list of legitimate or realistic political demands. Had I reinterviewed the village chiefs of Cuzco and Pasco after the agrarian-reform decree, I believe that they, too, would have expressed a strong interest in government-sponsored land redistribution. Of course it is possible that the peasants actually had goals and desires far more radical than those they confided to me or my Peruvian research associates. But their disarming candor and frank38 That is to say, the bill was unexpected by the sierra peasantry and most of the population. Some political analysts in Lima were probably aware of the government's intentions.

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ness in answering many of my other questions make me doubt this possibility. Furthermore, additional evidence supports the proposition that the comunidad leadership was not thinking in revolutionary terms in 1969 or in 1964. My interviews and related research indicated that thousands of comuneros in Cuzco and the central highlands who marched onto haciendas in 1963 and 1964 believed that they were acting legitimately, that is, within the bounds of the existing political system; they did not consider themselves to be revolutionaries. Many village leaders believed that Belaúnde's inauguration was all that was required to institute the land-reform program he had promised them in his electoral campaign. They knew nothing of the technicalities of the legislative process and believed that the president's inauguration meant that the land was now theirs. 39 Invading peasants were scrupulous in avoiding bloodshed whenever possible. They rarely made any attempt to harm the hacendados, despite the animosities they bore toward them, and the peasants frequently gave the landlords advance notice of the invasion so as to allow them to evacuate their lands. 40 Furthermore, they usually took great care to seize only the lands to which they felt they had legal and legitimate claim. Although nothing stood in the way of a more extensive seizure, other lands remained untouched. In many instances the peasants marched onto the land, carrying their ancient land titles and the Peruvian flag. Revolutionaries would hardly show such great concern for legal niceties. It is entirely conceivable that in time the peasants might have broadened their demands and developed more revolutionary goals.41 However, Hugo Blanco, Héctor Béjar, and other leftist leaders who worked in the countryside have conceded that as of 1964 the peasantry was not highly radicalized. 42 The goals, even "Obviously not all the invading comunidad leaders felt this way, but many did. See Hugo Neira Samañez, Cuzco, and Los Andes. 40 See Chapter 5, above. 41 Some outside leadership would have to be present to reach this stage, but such leadership was available. "Héctor Béjar was a guerrilla organizer who was captured shortly after he tried to recruit peasants into his band in 1965. See Béjar, Perú: 1965, for an admission of his failure to recognize what the peasants' political orientations were. In interviews with Wesley Craig, myself, and others, Hugo Blanco also

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in Cuzco, were quite limited and posed no threat to the existing power structure in Lima. Might it be that the comuneros, though not revolutionaries themselves, were serving as shock troops for urban-based leftists who wished to eliminate existing power contenders from the political system? The leading conservative newspapers in Lima and many political and military leaders suggested that this had happened. Because many regional peasant federations in Cuzco, Ayacucho, and Huancavelica had close ties with urban radicals, conservatives saw peasant mobilization in the South as a dangerous threat to their own existence, one that had to be suppressed. As I have previously indicated, there seems to be little evidence to support such a theory. Radical students, lawyers, and urban labor leaders often played an important role in coordinating communication between communities and in setting up federations of villages that could serve as pressure groups. However, their influence at the village level was usually limited. Only a few of the Cuzco villages that I studied actually had contacts with urban leftists. Hugo Blanco's brother-in-law, Vládimir Valer, had helped to organize sindicatos in three of the comunidades that I studied, but he made no attempt to espouse revolution or to convert the villagers into armed guerrillas. Again, Blanco and Valer were well aware that the peasants would not be receptive to such appeals at that time. In short, there was no revolutionary threat in Cuzco in 1964. Furthermore, it is important to keep in mind that urban leftists (such as Genaro Ledesma of Pasco) were also active in the peasant federations of the Center. Yet, the Belaúnde administration never crushed the peasantry in that region. As I have shown in the preceding chapters, there is evidence that the Cuzco peasants were, and still are, more alienated from the political system and more antagonistic toward the sierra power structure than are the comuneros of Junín and Pasco. But this was largely a result of the government's repressive behavior toward them. The limited extent to which the Cuzco mobilization did pose a threat to the system was partly the government's own doing. My investigations indicate that spoke of the peasants' "bourgeois" interest in acquiring a plot of land. Béjar and Blanco were released from prison in December, 1970. Béjar has supported the military government, while Blanco still opposes its limited reforms.

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the Cuzco comuneros might have been co-opted as readily as were the villagers of the Center. Belaúnde's policies in the South seem to have been a product of two factors. First, he was under tremendous pressure from conservative power holders who seriously misperceived the goals of the southern peasantry and who consequently insisted that the mobilization in that region be crushed. Second, he recognized the southern peasantry's lack of political skills and political patrons. The comuneros in the central highlands were well organized, literate, and relatively sophisticated. Most of them were voters, and their leaders were accustomed to working in the political system. Most important, they had close ties with the APRA party, the principal opposition party in the Congress. APRA acted as the political patron of the communities in Pasco and parts of Junín and consequently protected them from police repression. The peasants of Cuzco had no such protectors. Their only external political alliances were with urban leftists, who were outside the legitimate political system. Consequently, there was nothing to prevent the government from destroying the movement. The suppression of peasant mobilization in the southern highlands revealed a debilitating weakness in the Peruvian political system. Charles Anderson suggests that Latin American political systems are more flexible than is commonly recognized: "It is inappropriate to view the classic political system of Latin America as entirely static. Often, we suggest that the normal course of Latin American politics is designed to reinforce the power of the oligarchy against the forces of change at work in the society. This is not entirely the case. . . . New contenders, new holders of significant power capabilities, will be able to partake in negotiation for a share of the resources and power of the state if they do not jeopardize the right of established elites to similarly act."43 Yet, in 1963-1964 the Peruvian political system showed precisely the kind of rigidity that Anderson disparages. The peasant mobilization in the mancha india was perceived as a threat to the existing order, although in fact it was merely a movement with limited goals. Belaúnde was under strong pressure from the opposition majority in Congress to restore order to the Andes. Prime Minister "Anderson, Toward a Theory, p. 9.

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Oscar Trelles, who had shown great restraint in his dealings with mobilized communities in the Center, was censured by the Congress, and Belaúnde was forced to replace him with a moreconservative figure. The president was also well aware that the Congress would not pass his agrarian-reform bill until it was convinced that rural unrest had been brought under control. Did the peasant movement actually jeopardize any of the established elites in Peru? In the central highlands most of the invaded latifundios were owned by large corporations (principally the Cerro de Pasco Corporation and Algolán). These firms had considerable influence in Peruvian politics, particularly the Cerro Company, which was one of Peru's largest companies. Yet, Belaúnde expropriated their ranches through presidential decree, without congressional approval. Both companies were compensated generously for their property and did not attempt to block the process of land reform. In fact, the only group in Peruvian society whose position was seriously jeopardized by the invasions were the feudal hacendados of the mancha india. Yet, the southern landlords were no longer politically influential in national politics.44 Wesley Craig notes that in 1962-1963, when the military government preceding Belaúnde had issued a land-reform bill for the province of La Convención, the hacendados of that region were too impotent politically to impede the decision.45 The landlords of the southern sierra would have been equally powerless. Had Belaúnde wished to expropriate their lands, he could have done so as easily as he had in Junín and Pasco. He chose not to because the southern comuneros were politically isolated, because he was under great pressure from Congress and the economic elite, and because the movement in the South was mistakenly believed to be revolutionary. In choosing to crush their movement, the president alienated the comuneros of Cuzco to the point where this misperception (of revolutionary intent) may have become a self-fulfilling prophecy. The Peruvian Military Junta and the Peasantry: 1968-1971 On June 24, 1969, President Juan Velasco Alvarado told a na44

See François Bourricaud, Power and Society in Contemporary Peru. Wesley W. Craig, Jr., From Hacienda to Community, p. 48.

45

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The Peasantry and the National Political System

tional radio and television audience that the Peruvian military junta was initiating one of Latin America's most-ambitious and farreaching land-reform programs. In essence, the government's decree promised the eventual elimination of all large latifundios in the nation. Highland hacendados were to be allowed a limited number of hectares; all land beyond that limit would be expropriated and turned over to the former hacienda peons or to the neighboring comuneros (depending on local conditions). 46 Of course, this was not Peru's first effort at agrarian reform. In 1964, President Belaúnde had guided a bill through the Congress. As is frequently the case in Latin America, that legislation did not produce much actual land redistribution. When the bill was signed in May, 1964, the government promised to distribute land to a minimum of 120,000 families. Four years later, shortly before the military seized power, the Belaúnde administration claimed to have given land to over 100,000 peasant households. However, in fact, over 75 percent of those families had attained their plots through seizures, not through governmental programs. Of the remaining 25,000-30,000 households that received land titles from the Agrarian Reform Agency, only 11,000 had actually received their property. Virtually all those families were from La Convención, Junín, and Pasco. The poverty-stricken comuneros of the mancha india had been given nothing. 47 As of the writing of this study (December, 1972) it is impossible to pass final judgment on the implementation of the military's moreambitious land-reform program. Progress has been impeded by a shortage of technicians and funds. Moreover, the disastrous earthquake of 1970 forced the government to divert its energies from the agrarian effort. Yet, from the start, General Velasco's administration has acted far more decisively than its civilian predecessor. The day after the reform bill was promulgated, Peruvian troops occupied several of the nation's largest coastal plantations. Initial progress in the sierra was slower, but expropriations in the mancha 46

The terms of the Agrarian Reform Decree were quite complex, differentiating between various types of latifundio lands. However, in general the law limited haciendas to a smaller area than Fidel Castro's first agrarian-reform bill had permitted. Castro hailed the Peruvian legislation as a significant progressive reform. 47 See Piel, "La situation actuelle"; and Rose, "La reforma agraria."

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india were accelerated in 1970. Even the regime's leftist critics have conceded that the land is being redistributed and that the junta is now ending large-scale latifundism in Peru. 48 The military reformers who now control the government are committed to settling the nation's land question, and the traditional highland hacendados are too weak politically to rally effective opposition. What motivated the generals to undertake such a far-reaching program of rural reform? Gerrit Huizer has pointed out that virtually all agrarian-reform programs in Latin America have been initiated as a response to peasant unrest. 49 To be sure, there had been sporadic land invasions in the sierra from 1964 to 1969. Several days before General Velasco announced his reform decree, comuneros in the southern department of Ayacucho seized the provincial capital of Huanta, attacked the police station, and cut off the city's contacts with the outside world (several bridges were dynamited). 50 But such violence had been rare. Since the repression of peasant mobilization in 1964, the Peruvian countryside had been fairly tranquil. Thus, the military's land-redistribution program was initiated without apparent pressures from below. Why, then, such radical action? Peru's nationalistic development-oriented generals apparently felt that agrarian reform was a necessary prerequisite to economic and industrial growth. 51 The feudalistic haciendas of the sierra were clearly inhibiting the nation's economic development. Their low level of productivity contributed to Peru's frequent food shortages and obliged the government to use valuable foreign currency reserves for agricultural imports. Finally, many government economists felt that Peruvian industrialization could only advance when 48

In July, 1969—two weeks after Velasco's speech—Ricardo Letts, leader of the clandestine Leftist Revolutionary Movement (MIR), emerged from hiding to deliver a lecture at Lima's Universidad Católica. Letts acknowledged that the military's land program was extremely impressive; see also James Petras, "What Is Happening in Peru?" Monthly Review (February 1970): 15-28. Chapter 10, below, analyzes the first three years of the reform. 49 Gerrit Huizer, "Peasant Organizations and Agrarian Reform in Latin America." 60 See Expreso and La Prensa, June 20-22, 1969. 81 See Petras, "What Is Happening"; and Eric J. Hobsbawm, "Generals as Revolutionaries," New Society, November 20, 1969, p. 822, for discussions of the military as an agent of capitalist revolution in Peru.

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large numbers of peasants were brought into the national consumer market. 52 The agrarian reform also offered the junta short-range political advantages. In one sweeping action, General Velasco undermined the political base of Peru's leading reformist parties, APRA and Acción Popular. The military was to accomplish what no civilian regime had ever dared try—the expropriation of all major latifundios in Peru. Undoubtedly, the reform decree greatly increased the government's base of support. As George Grayson, Jr., noted: "The success of the military junta in maintaining its unity and mobilizing public opinion on its behalf is impressive. In breaking with the 'forty families' which have traditionally run the country and in initiating a myriad of changes, Velasco has offered something to almost every sector of society except the oligarchy and the opposition party leaders." 53 Finally, the military's pronouncement was designed to bring a measure of stability to the Peruvian countryside. Although the generals were under no immediate pressure to initiate agrarian reform, the lessons of the 1963-1964 village unrest had not been lost on the military. Until land tenure in the sierra was distributed more equitably, there could be no guarantee of peace in the campo.54 Indeed, as we have seen, social scientists and other observers have long subscribed to the belief that land reform is the most-effective means available for pacifying the countryside on a long-term basis.55 Often land reform is depicted as the only alternative to "William Glade suggests that Mexico's impressive postwar industrial development could never have been achieved without the prior land-reform program of Lázaro Cárdenas in the 1930's (see W. P. Glade and C. W. Anderson, The Political Economy of Mexico). 63 George Grayson, Jr., "Peru's Military Populism," Current History 60 ( F e b ruary 1971): 7 1 . While some opposition parties—notably APRA—attacked the military and its reforms, the dominant wing of the Acción Popular (led by Edgardo Seoane) chose to support the government. 64 A major government adviser told me that the junta had been considering two alternative agrarian-reform laws until the days preceding General Velasco's June 24 speech. One of these was the bill eventually issued. The other was far more limited. The violence that broke out in Huanta (Ayacucho) at that time convinced the generals that only radical land reform would prevent further peasant upheavals. The final decision on the bill was made at a ten-hour marathon meeting of the junta and its advisers on June 23. "See, for example, Samuel P. Huntington, Political Order in Changing So-

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violent revolution. In Thomas Carroll's words: "The spectacle of Cuba, dispossessing not only the wealthy upper classes but also the middle income groups has profoundly affected the attitude of many of the ruling elements in the rest of Latin America [toward land reform]."56 In those areas of the sierra where the land-reform program was finally implemented it undoubtedly increased the Peruvian peasantry's initial support for the national political system. I noted earlier that the orientation toward the national government of village leaders whom I surveyed was far more positive in Junín than in either Cuzco or Pasco. I suggested that the great difference between Pasco and Junín in this respect was attributable to the fact that my interviews in Junín were carried out shortly after the promulgation of the agrarian-reform decree. 57 Yet, I also suggested that land reform could not in itself guarantee the peasant's long-term support for the political system. If the sierra peasant smallholder does not receive adequate technical aid, if his son is not able to acquire a decent education, if he is unable to get his products to the market of his choice, if he is dissatisfied by the prices that he receives at the market for his produce, if he feels exploited by local merchants, he may well feel the same sense of exploitation by the outside world that I observed among many village leaders in Cuzco. The Model of Peasant Mobilization that I offered in the preceding chapter suggests that land reform is neither necessary nor suiBBcient for the pacification of the peasantry. And, as I have also noted previously, there are a number of instances in which factors other than land shortages have brought about a high level of peasant alienation and unrest. More important, the mere redistribution of land by a paternalistic national government will not bring about effective change. Without the active participation of the peasantry, any agrarianreform program is doomed. As Eric Hobsbawm states: "Great social changes can't simply be imposed from the top. The people for whom they are undertaken must make them their own. An agrarian, cieties, pp. 375-376. Also, see such nonscholarly works as William Benton, The Voice of Latin America. 56 Thomas F. Carroll, "The Land Reform Issue in Latin America," in Latin American Issues, ed. Albert O. Hirschman, p. 201. 57 See Chapter 8, above.

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The Peasantry and the National Political System

or any other reform that is to work, must be political and not only a technical and administrative operation. The Peruvian government generals . . . still have to learn this fundamental lesson."58 In other words, if Peru is to have meaningful economic and political development, the serrano peasantry must be permitted to function as an independent participant in the political system. Subsequent to the agrarian-reform decree, General Velasco announced that, when the military decides to restore democratically elected civilian government, universal suffrage will be introduced into the constitution.59 If this is done, large numbers of highland peasants will vote in a national election for the first time in Peruvian history. In fact, the peasantry will then become the nation's largest single bloc of voters. If it is able to use its voting power effectively, the constitutional change instituted by the generals will prove to be as significant in the long run as the radical agrarian reform. If they are to become a viable and effective political group within a democratic system, the peasants must ultimately form secondary political interest groups and, perhaps, political parties on a regional and national basis. Obviously, there will always be divisions among the peasantry—comuneros against former hacienda peons or conflicts of local loyalties—that will inhibit its political influence. Peasant federations and parties will almost certainly require help from sympathetic urban groups and individuals. However, when they were permitted to organize freely, the peasants of the central sierra demonstrated that the comunidades can exert political pressure within the system. As education and literacy spread in Cuzco and the South, the peasants in that region can also become more politically effective. However, the military has hesitated to allow the sierra comuneros to assume an independent political role. As Hobsbawm notes, reform programs have been heavily overladen with paternalism. 60 Many agricultural experts in the present government believe that land reform can be effective only if students from the agrarian university (University of La Molina) are sent to the sierra to or58

Hobsbawm, "Generals as Revolutionaries," p. 822. The vote has always been restricted to literates. 60 Hobsbawm, "Generals as Revolutionaries." 59

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245

ganize peasant cooperatives and to give the comuneros technical aid. Shortly after the promulgation of the reform law, there was talk of closing the university for one year for this purpose. The more progressive members of the military junta favored such action. Most of the generals, however, were fearful that this would expose too many peasants to the students' Marxist doctrines. Several other government actions illustrate the military's fear of independent peasant mobilization. A number of independent villagefederation leaders in the South were jailed during the first years of the agrarian reform.61 My survey of comunidad officials indicated that the majority of village peasants in the sierra have limited and reasonable political demands. They will soon be capable of organizing themselves to present those demands to the state and to effectively use whatever aid the government gives them. In short, the sierra peasantry can function as an independent power contender within the system. The question still remains, however, "Will Peru's major powerholders permit it to do so?" "Police crackdowns also occurred on coastal plantations. See Chapter 10, below.

10. EPILOGUE: THE PEASANTRY AWAITS AGRARIAN REFORM

At the time of this writing, more than three years have passed since Peru's "revolutionary" military regime promulgated its 1969 land-reform decree. Evoking the memory of the legendary Incan hero Túpac Amaru, President Juan Velasco Alvarado declared that all the nation's latifundios would be turned over to the peasantry by the mid-1970's. The effects of such a land redistribution on the sierra's social hierarchy would be truly revolutionary. The economic and political power base of the highland gamonales would be swept away; and, for the first time in Peruvian history, the campesino could aspire to full participation in the nation's social, economic, and political life. But the winds of change blow slowly in the sierra. It is still too early to fully evaluate the government's land-reform program or to assess its political and social implications. Yet, a number of important questions can be raised and partially answered at this time. How far-reaching has land redistribution been in the sierra during the first three years of reform, and what are the prospects for the future? In what way has agrarian reform affected the highland peasantry's potential for political mobilization and radicalization? Finally, has the "revolutionary" military regime been willing to link

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its rural reforms with greater peasant participation in the nation's political system? The Nature of the Agrarian Reform In Latin America it is an established, if unfortunate, fact that land-reform legislation is frequently enacted and rarely enforced. During the last decade the peasants of several Latin American nations have eagerly anticipated reform programs only to find them a cruel deception. As one authority has noted, "International experts would do well to look at Latin American countries, where the sophisticated talk is so patently insincere and produces laws which allow so much exemption to landowners that the area distributed is whittled down to waste land, while officials safeguard their own position."1 Thus, a study of Colombia's much-lauded agrarian-reform program in the 1960's revealed that, if the existing rate were continued, redistribution of land to all of that nation's needy peasants would require 1,300 years. 2 Indeed, as we have seen, Peru had passed an agrarian-reform law in 1964 that was highly ineffective. Almost immediately after announcing its land-reform decree, General Velasco's regime moved dramatically to demonstrate the seriousness of its intent. Within forty-eight hours of the president's speech, government intervenors took control of eight of the nation's largest coastal sugar plantations. These estates, along with a ninth that was affected shortly thereafter, constituted 60 percent of the land used to cultivate Peru's principal agricultural export.3 In expropriating these plantations, the government moved against the pillars of Peru's traditional political and economic oligarchy. President Belaúnde's 1964 agrarian-reform bill had specifically exempted modern coastal plantations from redistribution. 4 1

Doreen Warriner, Land Reform in Principle and Practice, p. 135. See Heliodoro González, "The Failure of the Alliance for Progress in Colombia," Inter-American Economic Affairs 23 (Summer 1969): 88. 3 John Gitlitz, "Impressions of the Peruvian Agrarian Reform," Journal of Inter-American Studies and World Affairs 13 (July-October 1971): 456-458. 4 See François Bourricaud, "La reforma agraria en el Perú," Oiga (Lima), January 20, 1967, pp. 32-34, and January 27, 1967, pp. 32-35. For a description of the role of coastal sugar barons in the Peruvian oligarchy, see Bourricaud et al., La oligarquía en el Perú. 2

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During the first year of the new reform program (June, 1969June, 1970) implementation was generally restricted to the moremodern coastal plantations. Virtually all large hacienda expropriations occurred in the northern and central coastal regions of Lima, Ancash, La Libertad, Lambayeque, Piura, and Tumbes. Many government critics began to question whether the military intended to launch an assault on the sierra latifundios. Several factors seem to have delayed the redistribution of highland haciendas. First of all, legal land expropriation is a complex matter. The affected land must be surveyed and its titles inspected. Having already committed many of the Agrarian Reform Agency's skilled technical personnel to the job of expropriating coastal plantations, the government may have been reluctant to spread its bureaucratic resources too thinly. Also, the agrarian-reform program was designed to stimulate the growth of cooperatives and to discourage the distribution of lands to private ownership. 5 Literate coastal plantation workers, backed by long-term trade-union experience, seem to have formed such cooperatives more readily than traditional highland campesinos.6 Finally, the devastating earthquake of June, 1970, undoubtedly set back the government's reform program. In spite of these difficulties, a limited amount of land redistribution was initiated in the sierra during the early months of 1970. Cuzco's Pampa de Anta, a center of peasant unrest during the Belaúnde administration, was the first highland area to be affected.7 On June 24, 1970, the government marked the first anni5

For a full discussion of the reform law, see Fred Mann et al., Preliminary Analysis, especially pp. 66-72. 6 It may also be true that the military hoped to undermine APRA's traditional base of support among the coastal sugar workers. APRA had long been anathema to the Peruvian armed forces, and the creation of governmentsponsored cooperatives on the sugar plantations in La Libertad and Lambayeque might be expected to weaken the traditionally pro-APRA unions. See Gitlitz, "Impressions," and Hobsbawm, "Generals as Revolutionaries," p. 822, for a discussion of this point. 7 A rather substantial amount of land was distributed in late 1969 to the peasants of Junín and Pasco. Gen. Jorge Barandiarán Pagador, minister of agriculture, claimed that 339,203 hectares (over 800,000 acres) had been given to the peasantry of the central sierra during the last four months of that year. However, most of this land had been expropriated from the Cerro de Pasco

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versary of the agrarian-reform law by giving Junín's campesinos vast tracts of land formerly held by the Cerro de Pasco and Algolán corporations. Nearly 600,000 acres of land and 150,000 head of sheep were turned over to 3,359 peasant families organized into the Túpac Amaru Cooperative. This cooperative, formed by the haciendas' former feudatarios and eight neighboring comunidades, was significant in several respects. 8 It constituted the largest single expropriation in the sierra up to that point and brought together comuneros and former colonos in a joint productive effort. In subsequent months government spokesmen pointed to the Túpac Amaru Cooperative as a model for cooperation between villagers and peones.9 During the second year of the junta's agrarian reform the pace of land redistribution in the sierra was accelerated considerably. In April of 1971, 4,000 peasant families in Junín received over 620,000 acres of land and 120,000 head of sheep. Their new cooperative, known as SAIS Cahuide, was composed of former hacienda colonos and members of twenty-nine adjoining comunidades. Many of the participating communities had invaded portions of these same lands during the early 1960's. The Cahuide cooperative is the largest in Peru and encompasses some of the most technologically advanced ranching haciendas in the nation.10 On April 26, 1971, Gen. Enrique Váldez Angulo, the nation's newly appointed minister of agriculture, announced that the government had essentially completed agrarian reform on the coast and would concentrate its future efforts in the sierra.11 Two months later major land redistribution began in the southern and central and Algolán corporations before the 1969 agrarian-reform decree (see, Latin America, January 16, 1970, p. 24). 8 El Comercio (Lima), January 1, 1971, p. 7 of a special supplement on the agrarian reform. The cooperative was later expanded to include nine additional comunidades, giving the organization a total population of 14,841 people (see El Comercio [Lima], June 9, 1971, p. 4). Cooperatives that bring together former hacienda colonos and comuneros are officially designated as Sociedades Agrícolas de Interés Social (SAIS) or Agricultural Societies for Social Benefit. 9 See, for example, a speech by Minister of Agriculture Gen. Enrique Váldez Angulo, ibid., April 23, 1971, p. 4. 10 Ibid., April 21, 1971, p. 4; April 23, 1971, p. 4; April 24, 1971, p. 4; and April 25, 1971, p. 4. "Ibid., April 27, 1971, p. 4.

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highlands. In Junín, 110,000 acres of land were turned over to 6,000 families in four haciendas and eleven comunidades. And, in Cuzco's Anta province, 5,000 families from thirty-eight comunidades joined 1,000 feudatarios to form the SAIS Túpac Amaru II. Sixty haciendas with a total area of 90,000 acres were distributed to this cooperative, the second largest in the mancha india. Thus, by the close of the agrarian reform's second year, Cuzco and Junín had become the principal regions for new government land adjudications.12 In June of 1971 the Ministry of Agriculture disclosed that 90,000 rural families had been granted over 3 million acres of agricultural and grazing lands. Undoubtedly, these families were predominantly costeños. However, as many as 20,000 beneficiaries were from Cuzco and Junín. 13 Government projections call for the distribution of land to 65,000 additional families annually through 1975. By the completion of the reform program, it is anticipated that 9 million hectares (22.5 million acres) will have been distributed to some 350,000 families.14 In short, even the military government's most severe critics can no longer deny the regime's commitment to change. A nation that once bore the weight of one of Latin America's most-inequitable land-tenure systems (with 181 families owning 60 percent of the sierra's cultivated land) is in the process of abolishing the traditional latifundio.15 No other Latin American nation except Cuba can make this claim. Land Redistribution and Early Peasant

Mobilization

Senator Julio de la Piedra, a central figure in Peru's traditional 12 El Comercio (Cuzco), September 8, 1971, p. 1, and July 9, 1971, p. 1; El Comercio (Lima), June 23, 1971, p. 4, and June 24, 1971, p. 4. 13 El Comercio (Lima), June 24, 1971, p. 4, and September 5, 1971, p. 4; El Comercio (Cuzco), September 11, 1971, p. 1. 14 El Comercio (Lima), January 19, 1971, p. 1; December 10, 1971, p. 4. Subsequent figures released in 1972 indicate that the pace of redistribution from June, 1971, to June, 1972, lagged behind government projections. Fewer than 30,000 families were given land during that year (as opposed to the government projection of 65,000). However, this seems to result from a lag between expropriation of haciendas and the distribution of the land to peasant cooperatives. The rate of distribution as of late 1972 seemed to be picking up. See El Comercio (Lima), June 24, 1972, pp. 1 and 4 of a special supplement on agrarian reform. "Ministerio de Agricultura, Perú, p. 7.

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ruling oligarchy, once said of his home district, "He who controls the land and the water, controls the people, the politics and the economic life of the region."16 As we have seen, much the same could be said of all rural Peru throughout its history. Control over the sierra's land and water resources gave the rural gamonales virtually unlimited power over the lives of the peasantry. The military junta's land-reform decree and its subsequent water-resources bill have cut deeply into the base of this power. Consequently, land redistribution in the countryside has inevitably been associated with political mobilization of the nation's peasantry. I previously suggested that the government's agrarian-reform program was designed to reduce the likelihood of independent or radical peasant political mobilization in the highlands. The comunero land invasions and feudatario strikes during the initial months of President Belaúnde's administration had convinced the armed forces that a potentially volatile political situation existed in the sierra. Land reform might be expected to defuse that situation.17 In applying the new agrarian-reform program to the sierra, the military followed a pattern that it had established during its 1962 takeover and that was subsequently adopted by the Belaúnde administration. The first redistribution of land took place precisely in those areas where peasant unrest had been most prevalent. Junín and Cuzco, the two primary centers of rural mobilization in the 1960's, were the first highland departments to experience extensive reform. Within Cuzco, this tendency was also apparent. Three of the department's provinces benefited most heavily from the land reform—Anta, La Convención, and Paucartambo. Peasants in all three of these areas had been heavily organized into sindicato federations in the 1960's. Canchis, Quispicanchis, and Calca provinces 16

Latin America, February 26, 1971, p. 68. See pp. 241-243, above, for further discussion of this hypothesis. Of course, the sierra had been relatively tranquil for several years preceding the agrarianreform law. However, periodic unrest suggested that the potential for a major resurgence of peasant activity persisted. As I have noted earlier, only days before the military issued its reform law, a bloody confrontation between police and campesinos in Ayacucho resulted in several deaths. One government adviser informed me that the violence in Ayacucho had helped convince members of the junta that a far-reaching land reform was necessary. 17

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—other centers of unrest—were also affected by the new program; relatively unmobilized areas, such as Chumbivilcas, Acomayo, and Espinar, experienced very little reform.18 It would appear that the government's agrarian reform has temporarily achieved its objective of deradicalizing the highland peasantry. In recent years there have been few comunero land seizures and little rural violence. Yet, in time, the redistribution of land in the sierra may actually force the Peruvian military regime to confront more directly the issue of peasant political mobilization. Recent events in the northern department of Piura illustrate the potential political consequences of the junta's agrarian reform. In January, 1971, leaders of the Piura Agrarian League convoked a meeting in support of a local hacendado who had been imprisoned for obstructing the expropriation of his land. While the Agrarian League was officially open to all of the department's landowners (including peasant smallholders), it had long been a spokesman for the region's large latifundistas. League meetings were normally attended by forty or fifty hacendados who passed resolutions supporting their own interests. However, when the January meeting was called to order, Piura's leading hacendados were confronted by over one thousand campesino smallholders. The proposed resolution supporting the jailed hacendado was roundly defeated, and the assembled peasants then voted to replace the League's officers with a new slate headed by the secretary of Piura's peasant federation. Piura's patrones were suddenly confronted with graphic evidence that governmental rural reforms had destroyed their capacity to intimidate the region's peasantry. 19 In other parts of the countryside, similar patterns of peasant mobilization emerged. Only weeks after the smallholder takeover in Piura, workers on Hacienda Huando (located in Lima's Chancay 18

I was unable to obtain a systematic breakdown by province of land redistribution in Cuzco. However, a careful survey of Cuzco's El Comercio supports this hypothesis. My contention has also been supported by David Gow, a University of Wisconsin sociologist currently engaged in research in Cuzco. Many of the insights in this chapter must be credited to Gow, who has resided in Peru for a number of years and is an astute student of the sierra. 19 Latin America, February 26, 1971, p. 68; see also El Comercio (Lima), February 6, 1971, p. 12.

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Valley) protested government laxity in the enforcement of landtenancy limitations. Backed by the procommunist Peruvian General Confederation of Labor (CGTP), Huando's peasants charged government bureaucrats with allowing their hacendado to divide his land among his relatives and thereby evade expropriation of his estate. Hugo Blanco, who had just been released from prison, assumed a major role in the protest. In February of 1971, Blanco and radical students from Peru's Agrarian University led Huando's campesinos in a protest march toward Lima. After an unsuccessful police attempt to block the demonstrators, the government reversed its position and prohibited Huando's owner from circumventing the land-reform law. Thus, Blanco—a symbol of peasant radicalization—and leftist university students once again assumed prominent positions in the campesino protest movement. One journalist was moved to comment that "the dispute over Huando may turn out to have been an important milestone in the radicalization of the rural sector which many observers . . . expect to be one of the first consequences of the land reform law."20 Incipient Unrest in the Sierra Outbursts of rural discontent gradually spread from the coast into the sierra. Several aspects of the agrarian reform made such a development virtually inevitable. The promulgation of the reform decree had aroused great hopes and expectations among the highland campesinos. During my own travels in the sierra (following President Velasco's dramatic pronouncement), I was struck by the comunero leaders' tremendous enthusiasm for the prospective change. Yet, as we have seen, little actual land redistribution took place in the highlands during the first twelve to eighteen months of the reform. As campesinos awaited the application of the law to their own regions, many became disillusioned.21 Undoubtedly, the acceleration of highland land redistribution in late 1970 helped to rekindle support for the military regime. However, many sierra comuneros were still embittered by the Agrarian Reform Agency's 20

Latin America, February 19, 1971, p. 62; italics added. Several scholars who are now in Peru or who have recently returned have expressed similar feelings about the growing peasant scepticism and apathy toward the agrarian reform. 21

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tendency to favor hacienda feudatarios in allocating expropriated lands.22 As it becomes apparent in the future that there is not enough cultivatable land in the sierra to meet the demands of all the families that need it, peasant discontent will inevitably grow. One pessimistic government study maintains that only 149,538 potential family farm units are available to the agrarian reform for 852,000 eligible families.23 The government and technical experts have subsequently revised these figures. However, even the mostoptimistic estimates suggest that 35 percent of the families needing land will not receive any.24 Under these circumstances, peasant unrest has reappeared in the sierra. Events in Cuzco illustrate the growing level of campesino dissatisfaction with the agonizing pace of agrarian reform. The valley of La Convención, long a center of radical peasant activity, has probably been the first area in the department to witness renewed peasant mobilization. During the early months of 1971 the Provincial Peasant Federation of La Convención and Lares organized a series of demonstrations to protest the government's failure to speedily introduce meaningful agrarian reform to their valley. Federation spokesmen demanded that campesino families bene--t has been suggested that the Agrarian Reform Agency's tendency to favor feudatarios

over comuneros

may stem in part from the important role in the

program being played by Dr. Mario Vasquez. Vasquez's experience with Cornell University's Vicos Project seems to have given him a special interest in the problems of the hacienda colono. In any event, the competition between villagers and hacienda peasants for redistributed lands has been intense in some areas and has occasionally resulted in bloodshed. For example, in Cuzco's Calca province, the Agrarian Reform Agency announced plans to distribute Hacienda Paucartica to fifteen feudatarío families living on the land. In February, 1972, comuneros from the neighboring village of Sihua—who had tried to acquire part of the Paucartica land—attacked the hacienda's peasantry. One person died and four were wounded in the ensuing battle. Newspapers in Cuzco carried accounts of similar incidents elsewhere in the department (see El Comercio [Cuzco], February 7, 1972, p. 1; March 9, 1972, p. 1 ) . 23 Ministerio de Agricultura, Aspectos sociales y financieros de un programa de reforma agraria, quoted in Norman Gall, "Peru: The Master Is Dead." Dissent 17 (June 1971): 287. 24 Data in this area are hard to come by and are often contradictory. Mann et al., Preliminary Analysis, pp. 136-144, indicate that there are 1.3 million eligible peasant families in the sierra, of whom 650,000 will be able to benefit from the reform.

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fiting from the agrarian reform not be required to pay the government for redistributed lands. In June, 1971, the Federation initiated a general strike in the valley, which succeeded in closing down all stores and businesses in the area and halting all vehicular traffic. Under the leadership of Justo Quispe, a radical lawyer from Cuzco, the region's peasants have maintained a position of scarcely veiled hostility toward the government. More recently, the Provincial Federation has accused the junta of harassing independent peasant organizations and has demanded an end to taxation of produce leaving the valley. In November, 1972, peasant leaders announced plans for a massive march on the departmental capital unless their demands were met.25 Similar patterns of peasant unrest soon emerged in the province of Paucartambo. On August 29, 1971, the Departmental Peasant Confederation of Cuzco (the CDCC) announced formation of a Provincial Federation in that area. Paucartambo had been a center of peasant sindicato activity during the early months of President Belaúnde's administration. However, government repression of radical peasant organizations had destroyed the Provincial Federation in 1964.26 Now, after a seven-year hiatus, the CDCC was active once again. In January of 1972 the Provincial Federation led a protest march to the regional office of the Agrarian Reform Agency demanding the immediate expropriation of all the province's haciendas and their distribution to the peasantry without payment. Some one hundred peasants staged a sit-in in the Cuzco offices of the Agrarian Reform Agency and the guardia civil. Ultimately, leaders of the delegation were able to discuss their grievances with the departmental prefect. Shortly thereafter, government officials announced that redistribution would be accelerated in Paucartambo. 27 More generally, peasant discontent with the pace of agrarian reform has led to a resurgence of Cuzco's leftist peasant federation, the CDCC. During the early 1960's the Federation had been a major 25

El Comercio (Cuzco), July 9, 1971, p. 1; November 13, 1972, p. 1. See Julio Cotler, "Traditional Haciendas and Communities in a Context of Political Mobilization in Peru," in Agrarian Problems and Peasant Movements in Latin America, ed. Rodolfo Stavenhagen, pp. 533-559. 27 El Comercio (Cuzco), September 3, 1971, p. 4; December 29, 1971, p. 1; January 18, 1972, p. 1; and February 9, 1972, p. 5. 26

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agent of peasant mobilization in Cuzco and adjoining areas of the mancha india. Through the leadership of such men as Hugo Blanco, Vládimir Valer (Blanco's brother-in-law), and various student activists, the CDCC had brought mobilized peasants throughout the region into contact with radical urban groups. Government repression in 1964 effectively immobilized the CDCC outside La Convención. However, in the last few years the Federation has again emerged as a spokesman for peasant discontent in the department. In 1972 the CDCC joined together with the department's urban labor federation (the FTC) to stage a May Day celebration in Cuzco's central plaza. Five thousand peasants attended the rally demanding an authentic agrarian reform.28 Most of the sierra's peasant mobilization during the past three years has been directed toward accelerating the scope and pace of agrarian reform. Consequently, there is reason to believe that intensification of land redistribution in the highlands will reduce discontent over this issue. However, it is highly unlikely that even the most-extensive redistribution of hacienda lands will in itself pacify the highland peasantry or satisfy its political and social needs. In 1970 an American journalist traveled to Hacienda Lauramarca, Cuzco's largest latifundio and one of the first in the department to be expropriated in the current agrarian reform. The estate's 200,000 acres in the Pampa de Anta had been turned over to a cooperative of five thousand former feudatarios. Yet, as Norman Gall has written, . . . the formation of the cooperative had changed very little at the Hacienda Lauramarca. The Indians still live in their hovels and tend their animals and are cheated by the merchants at Ocongate . . . The agrarian reform tells them that the land and the animals are all theirs, but they are not sure this is true. They are so used to being cheated by the mistis, the mestizo merchants, and government officials they deal with, that they don't know what to believe. When the Indians go to town 28

Ibid., February 10, 1972, p. 5; May 2, 1972, p. 1. The May Day demonstration was significant in that it represented the first joint peasant mobilization effort by the leftist CDCC and the government-oriented Cuzco Departmental Federation of Peasants, Túpac Amaru. Generally, the Túpac Amaru Federation had aligned closely with the military government and had not been on good terms with the CDCC.

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to apply for a birth certificate so they can register their children for school, the municipal secretary at Ocongate requires them to bring "gifts" of sheep and cheese and beer, besides paying a high fee, before he will issue the birth certificate. 29

The problems besetting Lauramarca's colonos are representative of conditions throughout the mancha india. Indian comuneros and feudatarios have long been exploited by government officials who are hired to help them, but who, in fact, treat them with contempt. The paternalistic relationship between bureaucrat and peasant persists today and serves to undermine the "revolutionary" military's blueprint for social change. Thus, a leading Peruvian sociologist and government adviser warned that the agrarian reform would fail unless the peasantry were allowed to organize its own affairs without manipulation from above. "Technocratic manipulation has only replaced the patrón with the bureaucrat who decides how, when and where things should be done."30 If the campesino is given land by a paternalistic government, if social and political decisions affecting the peasant's life are made by condescending local officials, if the peasantry is not integrated into the national political culture, then the agrarian reform will not have really liberated the nation's campesinos. The "revolutionary" junta has publicly acknowledged this on numerous occasions. The director of Cuzco's agrarian-reform agency recently stated: "The restructuring of land tenancy is not an end in itself, but a means toward a unique goal, [creating] a campesino who is conscious of his role in the process . . . The ultimate goal of all that we do is the search for man and . . . his happiness . . . We invite the people to assume their role and responsibility . . . in the common task."31 President Velasco has similarly declared that 29

Gall, "The Master," p. 290. El Comercio (Lima), August 5, 1970, p. 3. I am indebted to Charles Kleymeyer, University of Wisconsin sociologist, for his ideas on the paternalistic relationship between mestizo bureaucrats in the sierra and Indian campesinos. Kleymeyer, who has recently conducted research on mestizo-Indian relations in Cuzco and Apurímac, notes that paternalism of this type has not diminished in spite of the military's reformist regime. Local administrators continue to use the familiar tú form when addressing peasants and are addressed in turn with the more respectful usted form. I observed this same phenomenon during my own trips to government offices in the highlands. 31 El Comercio (Cuzco), January 1, 1972, p. 2. 30

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"the peasant must be increasingly cognizant of his right to participate in the nation's decisions."32 Yet, the generals who now guide Peru's "revolution from above" are fearful of the ultimate political implications of their own statements. Samuel Huntington has noted that military regimes are invariably very wary of uncontrolled, mass political mobilization.33 The Peruvian armed forces are no exception. In a 1970 study of the junta's agrarian reform, John Gitlitz noted that "the government has shown an aversion to partisan politics, an unwillingness to allow decisions to be made at a local level by those affected, and a reluctance to become involved in the work of political mobilization."34 There is evidence that during the past two years the generals have partially overcome their aversion to political mobilization. Yet, the government's political efforts continue to suffer from its own ambivalent perspective. SINAMOS and Other Government Agencies for Mass

Mobilization

In June of 1971 the Peruvian government announced the creation of SINAMOS—the National System for the Support of Social Mobilization. The new government agency joined under a single aegis numerous organizations that had been involved in the process of economic development, mass education, and social mobilization: the Office for the Development of New Towns (i.e., urban barriadas); the Office of Cooperative Development; the Office of Community Development; the Directory of Peasant Organizations; the Directory of Peasant Comunidades; and the Office of Promotion and Diffusion of Agrarian Reform. Eleven regional offices for SINAMOS were established in various parts of the country. Spokesmen for the new system stated its purpose: "We believe that we must contribute . . . to the diffusion of the idea that the people themselves must decide their future . . . without paternalism, without manipulation [and] without 'bossism.' [We possess] an indestructible faith in the capacity of the people themselves to act, organize and decide [their future], that is to say, to exercise 32

See El Comercio (Lima), June 24, 1972, p. 1 of a special supplement on the third anniversary of the agrarian reform. 33 Samuel P. Huntington, Political Order in Changing Societies. 34 Gitlitz, "Impressions," p. 468.

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35

power." In short, SINAMOS declared its intention to mobilize Peru's traditionally powerless peasants and urban poor. Nearly one year passed between SINAMOS's foundation and the introduction of Zonal OflBces for the Support of Social Mobilization (OZAMOS) in the sierra. In April, 1972, Cuzco received its first OZAMOS centers. As of mid-1972 other Andean departments still lacked zonal offices.36 To date, the National System for the Support of Social Mobilization, like the Agrarian Reform Agency, has proceeded slowly and very cautiously in the highlands. The organization's goals in the countryside seem to fall into three general areas: stimulating and supporting rural community-development projects, providing peasants with adult education and technical training, and creating channels for peasant political articulation. During the system's initial operations, peasant leaders seem to have viewed SINAMOS primarily as an agency for supporting public-works and community-development programs. Highland newspapers frequently carried accounts of local development projects that were receiving or seeking government assistance through SINAMOS. Thus, for example, in July, 1972, the Peasant Federation of Canas Province requested assistance from ORAMOS (SINAMOS's regional office) in the completion of a local access road that the area's peasants had been building. The following month the Agrarian Cooperative of Antapampa announced plans for the construction of Peru's first cooperative city. The new town, built by voluntary campesino labor under the direction of SINAMOS technicians, would provide homes for over five thousand peasant families.37 In short, SINAMOS has taken over the type of community-development projects originally stimulated by President Belaúnde's Cooperación Popular. The system's initial educational efforts in the sierra were generally confined to technical subjects. Selected leaders of comuni35

El Comercio ( L i m a ) , June 24, 1972, p. 6. El Comercio ( C u z c o ) , March 24, 1972, p. 4; April 2 1 , 1972, p. 1. Thus, authorities in Puno complained to the federal government about having their department designated as an annex of SINAMOS's regional office in Cuzco. They wished to have Puno designated as an independent SINAMOS region. 37 El Comercio (Cuzco), May 23, 1972, p. 6; July 3 1 , 1972, p. 6; and August 4, 1972, p. 1. 36

260

Epilogue

dades and peasant cooperatives were trained in agricultural technology and cooperative management. Short courses were offered in Lima, Huancayo, or Cuzco on topics such as Agrarian Reform and Government Credit. 38 Recently SINAMOS has hesitantly extended its adult education program beyond the realm of purely technical training. Greater stress has been placed on raising the highland peasantry's level of political consciousness. In May of 1972 CENCIRA (SINAMOS's educational arm in the countryside) introduced a pilot program in Cuzco's Calca province (distrito of Lares). This program, designed to "raise peasant consciousness and capabilities," focused on such topics as "peasant relationships of social, political and economic dependency." 39 Concurrently, the national government has announced parallel reforms in the sierra's primary schools. The junta has expressed its intention to dehispanicize the education of campesino children in the highlands. Teachers have been directed to teach history from a Quechua (i.e., peasant) perspective; and early primary instruction in many traditional peasant areas will soon be offered in the Quechua language. Local pedagogical committees will be established in the countryside in order to involve parents more directly in their children's education and to stimulate adult education. 40 On the whole, SINAMOS's efforts in the areas of community development and adult education are relatively noncontroversial activities to which the government is firmly committed. Yet, their effectiveness has been impaired by a shortage of government personnel and a lack of commitment from many local bureaucrats. When expropriated haciendas in the highlands are turned over to peasant cooperatives, government technicians are sent to advise the campesinos on the techniques of managing their new property. Yet, as Norman Gall has noted, such instruction is frequently inadequate and bureaucratic resources are spread far too thinly. After three weeks of visiting and persuading the Indians to form a co--

-bid., May 5, 1972, p. 1; see also El Comercio (Lima), June 6, 1971, p. 4.

39

El Comercio (Cuzco), May 4, 1972, p. 1. The military's educational-reform program in the sierra reflects many ideas of the radical Catholic educator Ivan Illich, whose advice was sought by the Peruvian government. See Latin America, February 24, 1972, p. 37. 40

The Peasantry Awaits Agrarian Reform

261

operative, the [government] "promoters" left the Hacienda Lauramarca to form cooperatives elsewhere. Some of the more concerned "promoters" had urged the regional agrarian reform director in Cuzco that two or three staff members stay at the hacienda for a year or so to help the cooperative through its initial period. However, the director said that Lima had assigned him too many cooperatives to organize, and that he needed all the "promoters" he could get to swarm over the haciendas of the region so he could report to Lima that his quota had been fulfilled. Consequently, the formation of the cooperative had changed very little at the Hacienda Lauramarca.41 As I indicated earlier, there is also a serious problem of bureaucratic indifference and incompetence. Many mestizo bureaucrats who direct highland schools and SINAMOS offices are far from enthusiastic about their tasks. "They often feel degraded by being stranded among the Indians, the idea of a desk job in Lima being closer to their hearts, and generally they work with little energy or enthusiasm."42 Under these circumstances, it is not surprising that Lima's governmental directives on raising the political consciousness of the peasantry are often not implemented in the sierra. Gall poignantly compares the current situation in Peru with postrevolutionary Cuba: "On a long reporting trip I made to Cuba a few years ago, I found that virtually every casa grande of every nationalized hacienda had been converted into a school for the symbolic and functional purposes of creating a new society. In Peru today most of the manor houses of the great haciendas are being inhabited by agrarian reform functionaries, and sometimes by army colonels as well."43 This point brings us to the third, and most-controversial, area of SINAMOS activity—the political mobilization of the urban and rural masses and the creation of channels for political participation and articulation. In early 1971, John Gitlitz, a sympathetic observer of the Peruvian agrarian-reform program, contended that "throughout, the agrarian reform has been an exercise in rule from the top down. There has been virtually no participation in decision-making by the concerned sectors. At the same time the officers have not seen 41

Gall, "The Master," pp. 289-290. "Ibid., p. 288. "Ibid, p. 289.

262

Epilogue

fit, at least yet, to mobilize the peasantry which they say they are benefiting. There has been no serious effort to develop a powerful political force capable of carrying through the reform, defending it against its detractors, or supporting the military government itself."44 Gitlitz's assertion has been acknowledged by the generals who guide Peru's revolution from above. In a speech marking the second anniversary of the military's assumption of power, President Velasco conceded, "It has not been possible during this first stage to articulate an organized and massive popular support for the Revolution, nor to resolve completely the fundamental problem of the effective participation of the people in the revolutionary process."45 The military regime seems to recognize that, ultimately, it cannot achieve the basic social change it desires without the active support of the masses; nor can the most dramatic aspect of Peru's revolution, the agrarian reform, be successful without the involvement of the peasantry in the decision-making process. Yet, the generals have not been able to decide among themselves exactly how far they are willing to travel along this road. As a consequence, government policy has often appeared to be inconsistent and unpredictable. Rapidly changing military policies toward Peru's coastal sugar cooperatives illustrate the government's dilemma. When the armed forces first expropriated the nation's largest sugar plantations in 1969, the junta announced its intention of turning over these estates to worker-owned-and-managed cooperatives. In time, however, it became apparent that the newly elected cooperative leaders (often, Apristas or, occasionally, leftists) were generally not amenable to government control. The military responded by restructuring the cooperatives' boards of directors so that a majority of their members were government appointees. Early in 1972 the junta's new restrictive policy provoked a direct confrontation with the workers of three major coastal plantations—Turnan, Pomalca, and Cayaltí. Forty union leaders who had obstructed government directives on these estates were imprisoned

"Gitlitz, "Impressions," p. 474. Gall, "The Master," p. 312.

45

263

The Peasantry Awaits Agrarian Reform 46

on charges of sabotaging the agrarian-reform program. Thus, it appeared that the "revolutionary" government had completely reneged on its promise of worker control. Yet, one month later, Gen. Leonides Rodríguez, director of SINAMOS, traveled to the three embattled plantations to negotiate a reconciliation with the workers. The jailed union leaders were released, and the junta promised to remove all government appointees from the cooperative directory. Having failed to impose its will on the coastal plantation workers, the government agreed to honor its original commitment to worker self-management.47 In the sierra the military regime has been even more cautious about promoting peasant input in the decision-making process. In early 1971, plans were announced for the development of a national Confederation for the Development of Peasant Communities. It was hoped that eventually some twenty regional federations representing all portions of the sierra would be formed. Each of the regional federations would, in turn, be composed of at least fifteen comunidades. Thus, through their elected representatives, highland comuneros could articulate their needs to economic planners in their own region.48 Later that year, La Conventión's agrarian-reform office declared its intention to meet regularly with sindicato and cooperative leaders in the area in order to coordinate government planning more closely with peasant needs. Shortly thereafter, public hearings were held in the provincial capital of Quillabamba for the purpose of soliciting popular sentiments on the agrarian reform.49 Similar programs have been introduced elsewhere in the sierra. It is far too early at this time to fully evaluate the "revolutionary" government's attempts to generate peasant political participation and mass support for the regime's programs. SINAMOS has 46 Essentially the dispute between the sugar workers' union and the government administrators centered upon the use of plantation profits. Worker representatives on the board of directors had voted to use cooperative profits to finance a pay increase for the workers, while government appointees insisted that most of these funds b e reinvested. 47 See Latin America, February 11, 1972, p. 4 1 ; March 17, 1972, p. 84. For a report of earlier conflict in the Hacienda Cayalti, see El Comercio ( L i m a ) , November 8, 1970, p . 20. 48 El Comercio ( C u z c o ) , May 14, 1971, p. 4. 49 Ibid., November 26, 1971, p. 1; November 27, 1971, p. 4.

264

Epilogue

been active in the sierra for less than one year. However, there is evidence to suggest that to date the mobilization program has fallen short of its stated objectives.50 Channels of communication have been established with the leaders of government-oriented peasant federations, such as Cuzco's Departmental Federation of Peasants, Túpac Amaru. But, as I have indicated previously, at the comunidad and hacienda level—where the redistribution of land is taking place—the campesino is generally given little say in the decision-making process. Consequently, in many of the newly formed peasant cooperatives, friction has developed between the campesinos and agrarian-reform officials sent to help administer the land. In at least one instance the peasants have asked government technicians to leave. Throughout the highlands, campesinos benefiting from the agrarian reform find themselves subjected to the directives of mestizo bureaucrats. As one former feudatario put it, "We don't know whether we will have a new life or just a new master, the government which has expropriated the hacienda to form the cooperative."51 Thus, it is not surprising that efforts by SINAMOS and other government agencies to generate and mobilize peasant support for the "revolutionary" regime have not been particularly successful. Periodically campesinos are brought by government trucks into Huancayo or Cuzco to greet President Velasco and other visiting dignitaries. But genuine peasant enthusiasm is lacking. In most of the sierra's haciendas and comunidades, there is undoubtedly strong peasant support for the government's agrarian reform. But most campesinos have yet to be convinced that the redistribution of land is part of a broader process of social and political change. 52 50

See pp. 258-259, above, for an official statement by SINAMOS of the system's objectives in the area of social mobilization. 51 Gall, "The Master," p. 287. 52 Because I left Peru prior to SINAMOS's initial activities in the sierra, my impressions are based largely on conversations and correspondences with three sociologists who have recently concluded research in various parts of the highlands (or who are still engaged in such research). Although the three worked independently, each noted a growing level of peasant apathy toward the Peruvian "revolution." It appears that such apathy is more pronounced in the mancha india than in the central sierra. This would confirm my own earlier observations regarding the higher levels of political alienation in the southern highlands (see above, pp. 204-205 and pp. 229-233).

The Peasantry Awaits Agrarian Reform

265

When President Juan Velasco announced the government's new agrarian-reform program to the nation, he declared, "Campesino, the master will no longer feed on your poverty." Through its redistribution of coastal and highland haciendas, and through its National System of Social Mobilization (SINAMOS), Peru's military regime has shown a sincere commitment to structural change in the countryside. Yet, one general has admitted: "One of your greatest defects is the military habit of ordering and expecting to be blindly obeyed. This just doesn't happen in society at large. We deeply want to transfer power to the people, but we have not been able to find a way of doing this . . . We admit that our greatest problem is to give a real role to the people in the process that is going on right now."53 Only if this task is accomplished and only if the peasant is freed from the paternalistic control of government bureaucrats will the highland campesino truly feel that "the master is dead." 53

Gall, "The Master," p. 312.

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APPENDIX A Statistical Data

Chapters 7—9 contain a number of social, economic, and political indices that were used to investigate the relationship between socioeconomic change and political mobilization in forty-one peasant communities. Each index was based on several indicators described in the accompanying text. Villages were ranked in a scale of 1 to 4 (or 1 to 3) on each indicator. The rankings for several indicators were then combined to form a series of indices. Where interval (or ordinal) data were available for the variables, objective cutting-points were used to rank communities. For several socioeconomic and political indicators, however, more subjective criteria were employed. The cutting-points are described below. Social

Development

The index of social development was based on the following indicators: knowledge of Spanish by adult comuneros (Table A - l ) ; adult literacy (Table A-2); and primary school attendance (Table A-3). 1 Economic

Development

The following indicators were used to construct an index of economic development: presence of electricity; designation of the community as a district capital or annex; use of hired peons from outside of the community; the ratio of stores to village population (Table A-4). Rankings for the first three indicators are described in the text (see Chapter 7, above). Outside

Contact

Two indicators were used to construct an index of outside contact: percentage of villagers owning radios (Table A-5) and percentage of comuneros traveling to nearby cities each week (Table A-6). 1 As previously indicated, data for all tables were drawn from interviews with community officials.

268

Appendix

Indicators of Political Orientations: Political Affect, Alienation, Perceived Class Conflict

A

and

During the pretesting of the village questionnaire it was found that questions regarding the political orientations of community officials would have to be open-ended. I had hoped to have informants rank themselves along a four- or five-point scale of political orientations. However, this proved to be impossible, for two reasons. First, informants found the scales too confusing. Second, many village leaders were hesitant to make such precise statements about their political attitudes. These attitudinal questions were often very delicate, and I soon discovered that I was more likely to elicit a response if questions were open-ended. In all, there were thirteen items on my questionnaire that were used as indicators of political orientations. Three persons (myself and two research assistants) ranked all the responses on a scale of 1 to 4. The rankings that all three persons had assigned the indicators were then averaged to create a single ranking for each indicator. Thus, the criteria for assigning a particular response to a rank were necessarily subjective. However, it was found that the ranks assigned by all three persons engaged in the scoring were fairly highly correlated with each other. The few instances in which we assigned widely differing ranks to a particular response were reevaluated by all three of us together. The scores for the indicators were assigned to one of three groups and then combined within each group to create the three indicators of political orientations (see Chapter 7 ) : index of political affect (Table A-7), index of alienation (Table A-8), and perceived class conflict (Table A-9). Internal

Solidarity

Five indicators were used to construct an index of internal village solidarity. One of the indicators—degree of inequity of land tenure within the community—could not be objectively measured. Precise data on the size of comunero plots were not available. Consequently, ofiBcials in each community were asked to state whether family agricultural plots in the village were totally equal, somewhat unequal, or highly unequal in size. Each community was ranked low, medium, or high on inequity of land tenure according to these estimates. Cutting-points for the other four indicators of internal solidarity are presented in Tables A-10, A-11, A-12, and A-13. Political Efficacy Pretesting indicated that village officials were not able to place their community along an attitudinal scale of political efficacy. As was true of items on political orientations, open-ended questions proved to be most useful here (see the discussion of indicators of political affect, alienation,

269

Statistical Data

and perceived class conflict above). Community officials were asked if their community could exert political influence on the national government (Table A-14) and if their community could exert political pressure on the national government (Table A-15). Two research assistants and I ranked the responses on a scale of 1 to 4 (for political influence) and 2 to 4 (for political pressure). The rankings on both indicators of political efficacy were then averaged to create a single ranking for each. Here again, the criteria for assigning responses to particular ranks were subjective. However, there was a high correlation among the individual rankings. The few instances in which the three persons scored a response very differently were reevaluated by all three people together. Rankings for both indicators were combined to form an index of political efficacy toward the national government (see Tables 9.3 and 9.4 of Chapter 9, above). TABLE A-l Cutting-Points: Spanish-Speaking Comuneros Rank 1 2 3 4

Spanish-Speaking Comuneros (%) 0-49 50-89 90-95 96-100

No. of Communities 8 10 8 14

TABLE A-2 Cutting-Points: Adult Literacy Rank 1 2 3 4

Adult Literacy (%) 0-29 30-44 45-69 70-100

No. of Communities 7 11 14 8

TABLE A-3 Cutting-Points: Primary-School Attendance

Rank 1 2 3 4

School-aged Children in Primary School (%) 0-24 25-49 50-74 75-100

No. of Communities 10 12 11 8

270

Appendix A TABLE A-4 Cutting-Points: Ratio of Community Population to Stores No. of Persons per Store 160 or more 120-159 91-119 90 or less

Rank 1 2 3 4

No. of Communities 9 12 11 9

TABLE A-5 Cutting -Points: Comuneros with Radios Comuneros with Radios (%) 0-15 16-34 35-74 75-100

1

Rank 1 2 3 4

No. of Communities 12 10 8 9

TABLE A-6 Cutting-Points;: Comuneros Traveling to Nearby Cities Comuneros Traveling to Cities (%) 0-19 20-39 40-69 70-100

Rank 1 2 3 4

No. of Communities 16 11 6 6

TABLE A-7 Cutting-•Points: Index of Political Affect Rank Low dissatisfaction Moderate dissatisfaction High dissatisfaction

Total Point Score of 4 Indicators 4-6 7-10 11-16

No. of Communities 12 14 15

TABLE A-8 Cutting-Points: Index of Alienation Rank Low alienation Moderate alienation High alienation

Total Point Score of 4 Indicators 4-9 10-11 12-16

No. of Communities 14 15 10

Statistical Data

271 TABLE A-9 Cutting-Points: Perceived Class Conflict

Rank Limited perception of conflict Moderate perception of conflict High perception of conflict

Total Point Score of 5 Indicators 5-14 15-17 18-20

No. of Communities 14 12 15

TABLE A-10 Cutting-Points: Protestants Protestants Rank 1 2 3

(%)

No. of Communities

7 or more 3-6 0-2

9 8 24

TABLE A-11 Cutting--Points: Quechua Speakers Quechua Speakers Rank

(%)

No. of Communities

1 2 3

0-89 90-95 96-100

5 11 23

TABLE A-12 Cutting-Points: Ratio of Community Population to Number of Club Members Rank

1 2 3

No. of Members per Club

No. of Communities

451 or more 141-450 140 or less

18 13 10

TABLE A-13 Cutting-Points: Number of Fiesta Days per Year Rank

1 2 3

No. of Fiesta Days per Year · 7 or less 8-10 11 or more

No. of Communities 14 12 14

Appendix A

272

TABLE A-14 Cutting-Points: Perception of Village's Political Influence Rank 1 2 3 4

Response

No. of Communities

Cannot influence policies Can influence policies slightly Can influence policies with outside help Can influence policies

12 9 8 4

TABLE A-15 Cutting-Points: Perception of Village's Capacity to Exert Political Pressure Rank 2 3 4

Response Can never exert pressure Can exert pressure occasionally Can exert pressure

No. of Communities 15 8 11

APPENDIX B Methods of Data Collection

Collection of ecological data on Peruvian peasant communities is an extremely difficult task. Unfortunately, the smallest aggregate unit for data collection used by the Peruvian Census Bureau is the distrito. To my knowledge, there have been only three large-scale, nationwide surveys of indigenous communities. In the early 1960's the Cornell University Peru Project conducted an extensive survey of comunidades under the direction of Dr. Henry Dobyns and several associates. 1 In 1961, Dr. Ulrich Ritter and Dr. Héctor Martínez conducted a mail survey of 1,755 officially recognized communities and comunidades applying for recognition from the Ministry of Labor and Indigenous Affairs. Responses were received from 760 communities. 2 Finally, a two-phased study of twenty-six villages in five areas of Peru was conducted in 1964 and 1969 by the Instituto de Estudios Peruanos and Cornell University under the direction of Oscar Alers, Julio Cotler, José Matos Mar, William F. Whyte, and Lawrence K. Williams. 3 All three studies contain valuable data that can be used in further analysis of Peruvian peasant life. However, my investigation into peasant political mobilization required me to conduct my own survey of indigenous communities in major regions of rural unrest. A brief description of the methods that I used for selecting my communities and collecting my data might be useful for other persons interested in studying Peruvian comunidades. 1 See Henry F. Dobyns, The Social Matrix of Peruvian Indigenous Communities. 2 Some of the data from that study are found in Ulrich P. Ritter, Comunidades indígenas y cooperativismo en el Perú. 3 See José Matos Mar and William Foote Whyte, Proyecto de estudio de cambios en pueblos peruanos.

274 Selection of

Appendix

B

Communities

Using the archives of La Prensa, Lima's leading newspaper, I compiled a list of ninety-five peasant villages that had conducted land seizures in the period of 1962-1964. 4 Fifty-two of those comunidades were located in the depaitments of Cuzco (17 villages), Junín (16), and Pasco (19). In each of these three departments, I chose two provinces for my village survey—in Cuzco: Canchis and Quispicanchis; in Junín: Huancayo and Tarma; and in Pasco: Daniel Carrión and Pasco. The six provinces were selected because of their high levels of village unrest and their proximity to the major highland cities in those departments (Cuzco, Huancayo, La Oroya, and Cerro de Pasco). Using maps in the Ministry of Labor's Atlas comunal, 5 I was able to locate twenty-four officially recognized indigenous communities in those six provinces that had engaged in land invasions. For each mobilized village chosen, one or more neighboring comunidades were selected as control communities. A total of forty-six such comunidades were selected. Collection of Data I was aware from the start of my research project that it would be impossible for me to collect my data alone. Furthermore, I knew that a foreign white researcher would have great difficulty in gaining the confidence of many comunidad leaders. Consequently, in each department that I studied, I worked with one or more university students who were natives of that particular region. My research associates for Cuzco and Pasco were recruited in Lima from the Universidad Católica and San Marcos University. Students for Junín were recruited from the Universidad del Centro in Huancayo. I sought the students with the help of sociology professors in all three universities. Contrary to my expectations, a number of students were very anxious to gain research experience with me and were not overly concerned about working with a North American. Although one or two were uneasy about the possibility that I might be a CIA operative, the students whom I selected were ultimately convinced of my sincerity. All research assistants were offered a salary, full living and traveling expenses while doing the research, and full use of the data they collected. In two of the departments—Cuzco and Junín—my research associates 4

Of course, these were only the invasions that were reported in the press. There were a larger number of unreported seizures. 5 Ministerio de Trabajo y Asuntos Indígenas, Dirección de Comunidades, Atlas comunal.

Methods of Data

Collection

275

were fluent in both Spanish and Quechua. This skill proved to be extremely important in gaining the confidence of village leaders, particularly in Cuzco. I also found that community leaders were much more willing to talk to students from their own region than they would have been had my assistants been natives of Lima or another area of the coast. Again, this was particularly true of Cuzco, where distrust of outsiders was very intense. In short, the students with whom I worked proved to be invaluable assets to my research. All of them were students of sociology, and all had previous experience in rural field research. Three of them were natives of comunidades in the region in which they worked. When I arrived in the field, I discovered that several of the villages that had allegedly invaded haciendas (according to La Prensa) had not actually done so. Several communities that had been initially selected as controls had in fact taken part in invasions. Thus, some adjustment of the list that I had compiled in Lima was necessary. Twentyone mobilized communities and twenty control villages were ultimately selected in the six provinces (see Chapter 7, Table 7.1). Wherever possible, comunidades were selected that were in close proximity to each other. All the villages studied were within several hours' walk of a car-carrying road. Thus, because of limitations of time and resources, extremely isolated villages were not studied. Obviously, this biased my sample somewhat. My associates and I traveled to the comunidades in public buses and trucks or by hitchhiking. In most instances, interviews of community officials were conducted the day of our arrival. The most-gratifying aspect of my research was the warm and open response that we received from community officials. In only two comunidades did village leaders refuse to answer our questions. Generally, they answered our questions with great candor and care. More than that, they made me feel welcome in an atmosphere that was entirely new to me. I can only hope that the research I conducted may be of some small help to their villages some day. With this in mind, I have already passed on a summary of some of my findings to a member of the University of Wisconsin Land Tenure Center who worked briefly in Peru last year with the nation's new agrarian-reform program.

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GLOSSARY

Acción Popular: the Popular Action party founded in the 1950's by Fernando Belaúnde Terry, a noted Peruvian architect. The party's reformist program has attracted support from students, the middle class, and the peasantry. In 1963 Belaúnde and his party won the presidency with very solid support from the peasants of the southern highlands. allegado: a subrenter on a hacienda—that is, a peasant who rents a small plot of land from another peasant (an arrendire) who has previously leased a larger plot from the hacienda owner (hacendado). The allegado assumes any neofeudal obligations that the arrendire may owe the hacendado (for a discussion of these obligations, see colono, below). APRA (Aprista or American Popular Revolutionary Alliance): Peru's most influential political party in the twentieth century. Founded in 1924 by Víctor Raúl Haya de la Torre, it became the nation's first massbased political party. Its strongest support has come from the nation's labor unions, particularly the coastal plantation workers and highland miners. However, except in parts of the central sierra, APRA has never established a strong following among Peru's peasantry. Because APRA was long anathema to Peru's military and to the nation's oligarchy, it was illegal for most of the period 1924-1956, and the armed forces repeatedly prevented Haya de la Torre from assuming the presidency. By 1956 the party had lost much of its original militancy and in the sixties it was superseded as Peru's leading progressive party by the Popular Action party. A loyal party adherent is called an Aprista. The term "Aprista" is also used as an adjective to describe an organization affiliated with the party—for example, an Aprista union. ayllu: a term of pre-Incan origin denoting a peasant community bound together by actual or presumed ties of kinship, common customs, economic activity (agriculture or herding), communal ownership of the land, and joint work projects. The ayllu was the basic sociopolitical unit of Incan civilization prior to the Spanish conquest.

278

Glossary

barriada: a shantytown or squatter settlement on the outskirts of Peru's largest urban centers, particularly Lima. A barriada is primarily inhabited by migrants from the countryside who are unable to find adequate housing within the city. These migrants occupy outlying vacant lands that are either publicly owned or for which there is no clear title. campesino: a peasant. In Peru campesinos are generally Indians or cholos (see cholo, below). campo: the countryside or rural region of the country. casa grande: the manor house occupied by the hacienda owner (hacendado) or his administrator. CCP: the Peruvian Peasant Confederation. A leftist peasant organization that had some support in the southern highlands during the early 1960's but that never developed a significant following. CDCC: the Departmental Peasant Confederation of Cuzco. Formed in 1961, this group played a major role in Cuzco's subsequent peasant political mobilization and linked the peasantry with urban labor and student organizations. Government repression in 1964 weakened the Confederation considerably. cholo: a person of Indian origin who lives among mestizos (see below) and has been partially integrated into the white Spanish-speaking culture of the highlands. While cholos can speak, and even read, Spanish, their command of the language is somewhat limited, and they must often resort to the use of Quechua (or Aymará) idioms. Typically, the cholo engages in commerce and seeks upward social mobility. The term is often used disparagingly by whites or mestizos to suggest that the cholo is pushy and overly brusque. colono: used here to describe a peon on a highland hacienda (on the Peruvian coast, the term colono is used differently). The colono owes his landlord a series of feudal obligations, such as free (or poorly paid) labor, guarding the landlord's livestock, and so forth. In return, he receives a number of benefits, most important of which is usufruct of a plot of land. In this text, the word colono is used interchangeably with the terms peón, feudatario, and yanacona. comunero: a member of an indigenous peasant community. The comunero is allotted a plot of land (usually inherited from his father and passed on to his children) and partakes in the decision-making process in the village. Not all community residents are comuneros. One must either have been born in the community or have married a member of it. Comuneros take part in the village's religious ceremonies and participate in communal work projects (faenas). comunidad indígena: a peasant community registered with the Ministry of Labor and Indigenous Affairs. Official recognition technically affords a comunidad government protection against usurpation of its lands by

Glossary

279

outsiders. While a number of coastal villages (including fishing communities) are officially recognized as comunidades indígenas, the term is generally understood to apply to traditional Indian, highland communities engaged in agriculture or livestock herding. As in the Incan ayllu, land is owned communally but is worked in individual family plots. Villagers enjoy self-government through a popularly elected junta comunal (village council). The comunidad is the central socioeconomic unit of Peru's peasant smallholders. In 1969 the legally recognized name for comunidad indígena (indigenous community) was changed to comunidad campesina (peasant community). Both terms are used interchangeably in this text with the words comunidad, community, and peasant village. costa: the coastal region, which contains the more-developed sectors of Peru's economy and the more-European (Spanish) social structure. costeño: an inhabitant of the coastal region of the country. criollo: a person of European (Spanish) descent; a creole; criollo is often used to describe members of the socioeconomic elite. distrito: the smallest administrative unit in Peruvian government, roughly equivalent to a county in the United States. During the 1960's there were over 1,600 in the nation. The word distrito is also used to describe the district's capital. encomienda: a tract of land (usually extensive) that the Spanish crown placed under the administration of the conquerors and Spanish administrators in the sixteenth century. The Spanish encomendero ("administrator") was given the right to extract free labor from the Indians living on that land. The encomienda was the Spaniards' basic mechanism for dominating the indigenous rural population and was the predecessor of postindependence haciendas. FEDECOJ: the Department Federation of Junín Communities; an association of peasant community leaders founded in Junín in 1958. The organization brought together leaders of nearly 150 communities to act on mutual problems. FENCAP: the National Peasant Federation. This organization was founded by leaders associated with APRA (see above) in the 1930's. Like its parent organization, FENCAP was illegal for much of its first twenty-five years (until 1956). Its main strength has been on the coast, and, with the possible exception of Junín and Pasco, it has never had a significant following among the highland peasantry. feudatario: a peasant living in peonage on a traditional highland hacienda. The feudatario receives a parcel of land, grazing rights, and other benefits in return for a series of feudal obligations, including the provision of free or poorly paid labor to his landlord. The text uses the terms colono, feudatario, peón, and yanacona interchangeably.

280

Glossary

Fidelista: an adherent or supporter of the Cuban revolution and of Fidel Castro's revolutionary strategy. Fidelistas believe that revolution must come through armed struggle in the countryside carried out by small proficient military units called focos. This revolutionary strategy differs from that of orthodox communists, Maoists, and Trotskyists. Consequently, these various Marxist groups have often been at odds with one another. Fidelismo is the philosophy of Fidel Castro and the Cuban revolution. FPCC: the Provincial Peasant Federation of La Convención and Lares. Founded in 1958 in the frontier area called La Convención, the FPCC developed into one of Peru's most-militant and effective peasant organizations. The FPCC later helped create the Departmental Peasant Confederation of Cuzco (the CDCC, see above) and was its most dynamic member. FTC: the Cuzco Labor Federation; a leftist trade-union federation in the city of Cuzco with close ties to the department's peasant federation (see CDCC, above). FUC: the Cuzco University Federation. A leftist organization representing the student body at Cuzco's national university, it was active in the mobilization of the region's peasantry and provided important leadership. gamonal: a term used pejoratively to describe a large landholder who uses his power to rob peasant communities of their land or who, in other ways, exploits the Indian population on or near his hacienda. Highland peasants speak with great hatred of the gamonales. Gamonalismo is the term used to describe the system of control by landlords over the peasantry. guardia (or guardia civil): the civil guard; the most-potent law enforcement agency in the countryside. The guardia has been known in the past for its readiness to support hacienda owners and its harshness in dealing with mobilized peasantry. hacendado: the owner of a hacienda (see below) to whom the peons must furnish free, or almost free, labor and other feudal obligations in return for usufruct of a plot of land and other limited rights. The term is used synonymously in this text with landlord, latifundista, and patrón (see below). hacienda: used here to describe an estate—generally in the highlands—on which a traditional, semifeudal relationship exists between landlord and tenant; a precapitalist agricultural enterprise. See colono, feudatario, and patrón for further details on the social structure of the hacienda. hectare: the basic Latin American measurement for landholdings, equivalent to 2.47 acres.

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281

indígena: having to do with the indigenous Quechua- (or Aymará) speaking Indian population (see, for example, comunidad indígena, above); also, an Indian. indio: an Indian who speaks either Quechua or Aymará and who generally is illiterate or even unable to speak Spanish. The term is often used pejoratively and, consequently, the term indígena is preferred. junta: used here to refer to the national ruling military council in Peru. junta comunal: the elected governing council of the comunidad indígena (see above) or peasant community. The junta comunal handles internal conflicts in the village, makes many local administrative decisions, and represents the community in its dealings with the central and provincial governments and with other communities. It is headed by a president and a personero (see below). latifundio: an extensive rural estate on which the factors of production are frequently not used productively. The term is used relatively interchangeably in this text with hacienda (see above) and refers to a highland estate with semifeudal labor arrangements. However, only very large haciendas are considered latifundios. The socioeconomic system characterized by latifundios is called latifundismo. latifundista: the owner of a latifundio (see above). The term is used interchangeably in this text with the words landlord, hacendado, patrón, and, sometimes, gamonal. mancha india: the highland region of Peru (lying in the states of Ancash, Apurímac, Ayacucho, Cuzco, Junín, and Pasco), which contains the bulk of the nation's Quechua and Aymará Indian population. It is, consequently, the most-traditional and underdeveloped area of the country. mayordomo: a hacienda administrator who helps enforce the hacendado's (hacienda owner's) control over his peons. mestizo: a person whose ancestry is at least partially Indian but who has acculturated fully into white Spanish culture. In the highlands, mestizos populate the administrative and commercial centers and predominate among the area's merchants, government bureaucrats, and hacendados. minifundio: an agricultural smallholding that is generally under twenty acres in size and that is too small or undercapitalized to be productive. The owner of such a small plot is called a minifundista, and the prevalence of such smallholding is called minifundismo. montaña: a region of high jungle lying on the eastern slope of the Andes and leading into the Amazonian jungle. Because the montaña is sparsely populated, yet is more hospitable to settlement than Peru's vast jungle region (the selva), it has been a major frontier region for colonization.

282

Glossary

Movimiento Comunal del Centro: the Central (Highlands) Communal Movement; an organization representing peasant communities in the department of Junín as well as former villagers (comuneros) who have migrated to the city. Founded in 1963, the Movimiento was led by young professionals and students of peasant origin. In the 1960's it formed electoral alliances with other parties or peasant groups, and prior to the 1968 military coup it sought to create a new peasant-based political party. patrón: the owner or lessee of a hacienda whose ascribed status places him at the top of the local social hierarchy. He is the final authority over the peons on his hacienda and may offer certain paternalistic services. See colono, feudatario, and hacienda for further discussion of the peon-landlord relationship. Patrón is used interchangeably in this text with hacendado and latifundista. peon: a hacienda worker who owes his landlord a series of feudal obligations in return for usufruct of a plot of land. See hacienda and patrón for a description of this relationship. The term is used interchangeably in the text with the terms colono, feudatario, and yanacona. personero: a member of the elected communal council of the comunidad indígena (see above) or peasant community. The personero is responsible for handling the community's external affairs, including those with the national government. prefecto: the chief executive of a department (Peru's largest administrative unit). Each of Peru's twenty-three departments has a single prefecto. The nation is further subdivided into 149 administrative provinces, each administered by a subprefecto. Quechua: the language of Incan origin spoken by the vast majority of Peru's Indian population. It is the primary language of perhaps 40 percent of Peru's population, including most of the nation's peasantry. selva: the extensive, sparsely populated, jungle region of Peru lying east of the Andean highlands (sierra). serrano: an inhabitant of the Andean highlands (sierra). sierra: the Andean mountain range and highlands, which run parallel to the Peruvian coast and which contain most of the nation's indigenous peasant communities. The peasant movements described in this study occurred almost exclusively in the sierra. SINAMOS: the National System for Social Mobilization; an agency created by Peru's military regime to direct and control the political and social mobilization of the peasantry and urban poor. sindicato: a labor union or a peasant union. The peasant sindicatos described in this study were formed either by hacienda peons seeking better labor conditions or by village smallholders seeking to regain village lands that had been expropriated by neighboring haciendas.

Glossary

283

sol: the basic Peruvian monetary unit. During the 1950's it was worth approximately $.05 and was devalued during the Belaúnde administration to slightly over $.02. yanacona: in the highlands, a hacienda peon who provides free or almost free labor and, in some cases, a portion of his crop to the hacendado ("hacienda owner"). The term is used interchangeably in this study with the terms colono, feudatario, and peon (see above).

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INDEX

Acción Popular. SEE political parties, AP Acomayo, province of, Peru: 101 Acts of Reconciliation: 108 agrarian reform: Prado's land-study commission and, 77; military junta and, 82-83, 240-243, 246-247; Belaúnde's land-reform bill and (1963), 117-118; Agrarian Reform Act of 1969 and, 240, 247; and statistics of land redistribution, 249-250 Agrarian Reform Agency: functions of, 151, 240, 248; grievances against, 253, 255 Alegría, Ciro: 217-218 Algolán Corporation (Peruvian family-based firm): landownership of, 65-66, 205; land seizures from, 86; land expropriation from, 117-118, 239, 248-249 allegados: 72, 131, 277 Alliance for Progress: 84 Almond, Gabriel: 149, 217, 222 Alroy, Gil: 14 Ancash, department of, Peru: 19, 111 Anderson, Charles: 233, 238 Anta, province of, Peru: arrests in, 120; Piura Agrarian League in, 252; mentioned, 102 AP. SEE political parties, AP APRA. SEE political parties, APRA APRA Rebelde. SEE political parties, APRA Rebelde Apristas. SEE political parties, APRA

Apurímac, department of, Peru: 19, 24, 64-65, 71 Aquina, Alejandro: 93 Arequipa, department of, Peru: famine in, 79, 209; mentioned, 85 Arequipa, Peru: 17 Arora, Phyllis: 11, 218, 221, 229 Association of Wool Raisers: 78 Ayacucho, department of, Peru: famine in, 64-65, 79, 85; land seizures in, 71, 76, 111-112, 205, 209; uprisings in (1565 and 1616), 125 ayllu: 29, 30 and n, 277 Aymará language. SEE language, Aymará Banfield, Edward: 224 bardadas: 54, 146, 278 Basadre, Jorge: 124 Beals, Carleton: 7, 124 Béjar, Héctor: 236 and n. 42 Belaúnde Terry, Fernando: and election of 1963, 83; support by, of progressive elements, 84-86; his policy of conciliation, 116-119; and repression in the South, 119-121; and agrarian reform, 230-239; mentioned, 56, 115, 152, 176, 189, 197, 208, 240, 247, 251 Beltrán, Pedro: appointed chairman of land-reform commission, 77, 8081 Blanco, Hugo: program of, 73-75 and n. 16; arrest and imprisonment of, 81-82; mentioned, 105, 114, 116,

298 130, 134, 137, 148, 153, 211, 236, 237, 253, 256 Bourricaud, François: 40, 44, 50 Cáceres, Néstor: 144 Cáceres, Róger: 144 Cajamarca, department of, Peru: land seizures in, 111, 209 campesinos. SEE comuneros Canas, province of, Peru: villagers form defense league in, 101 Canchis, province of, Peru: villagers form defense league in, 101-103, 153 Canchucaja, Manuel: 142-143, 147 Carroll, Thomas F.: 243 casa grande: 91, 105 Castro, Fidel: 13 Catholics: 194 CCP. SEE political parties, CCP CDCC. SEE political parties, CDCC CENCIRA. SEE political parties, CENCIRA Central Regional Federation of Mine Workers: as APRA-affiliated, 140141 Cerro, Peru: 51, 67 Cerro de Pasco, Peru: 114 Cerro de Pasco Copper Corporation (title changed to Cerro de Pasco Corporation in 1951 and to Cerro Corporation in 1961): source of labor supply for, 49-50; landholdings of, 65-66; impact of mechanization and strip mining on, 66-70, 78, 86; strike against ( 1 9 5 8 ) , 68; mentioned, 88, 95, 136-137, 239, 248-249 and n. 7 Cerro de Pasco Miners' Union: 148 CGTP. SEE political parties, CGTP Chaplin, David: 219 Chaullay, Peru: massacre in, 82 cholos: unlike mestizo, 30; as transitional class, 39; description of, 39, 278; participation of, in politics, 40 n. 4, 174, 215; mentioned, 87, 112, 115, 123, 174, 190, 191, 198, 199

Index Chumbivilicas, province of, Pern: 101 CIDA (Inter-American Committee for International Development): 124 coffee: cultivation of, in La Convención valley, 72-73 colonos: definition of, 26-27; relationship of, to hacendados, 26-28; number of, 28; relationship of, to community, 29, 34-35; mentioned, 72, 73, 95, 131 El Comercio (Lima): on cause of land seizures, 78, 115, 234 Communist party. SEE political parties, Communist party Communists: 134 Community Federation of Champihuaranga, province of Daniel Carrión, Peru: 137 comuneros: described, 29-30 and n. 33; exploitation of, 31-32, 34; mobilization of, 39, 155-156, 171-173, 189-194, 198-201; migration of, to urban centers, 53-54; mentioned, 215 comunidades indígenas: described, 29-32, 30 n, 53, 140 La Convención, province of, Peru: description of, 70-71; unrest in, 70-76; peasant mobilization in, 7 0 79; patrón-tenant relationship in, 71-72; coffee cultivation in, 72-73; land seizures in, 74; mentioned, 42, 99, 115, 154 Cooperación Popular: as Belaúnde's development program, 143, 197 Cotler, Julio: 22, 41, 44, 103 Craig, Wesley: 42, 79, 194, 198, 239 criollo elite: 38, 125 CTP. SEE political parties, CTP Cuzco, department of, Peru: peasant unrest in, 70-71, 76, 88, 90, 1 1 1 112; description of, 99; peasant mobilization in, 99-105; land seizures in, 101; radicalization in, 208-210 Cuzco, Peru: 100-101

Index Daniel Carrión, province, Peru: unrest in, 69 Departmental Federation of Pasco Communities: 136-139 Deutsch, Karl: 10, 165 earthquake of 1970, Peru: 249 education: 163 elections, national: 1962, 81; 1963, 83-86 encomienda system: described, 21, 26, 40 Escobar, Gabriel: 3, 127 Esteban, Tomás: activities of, 94-95 Fanon, Frantz: 13 Favre, Henri: 41 FEDECOJ. SEE political parties, FEDECOJ FENCAP. SEE political parties, FENCAP feudatarios: in Junín, 89-99; description of, 102-106; in Cuzco, 106108 Fidelistas: university students as, 148; mentioned, 134 FIR. SEE political parties, FIR FLN. SEE political parties, FLN Ford, Thomas: 26 Foster, George M.: 224, 229 FPCC. SEE political parties, FPCC El Frontón Penitentiary: 138, 153 FTAP. SEE political parties, FTAP FTC. SEE political parties, FTC FUC. SEE political parties, FUC Gall, Norman: 256, 260, 261 Gálvez, Manuel: 86 gamonal: described, 41, 44, 45, 171, 251, 280 gamonalismo: 44 Gitlitz, John: 258, 261-262 Grayson, George, Jr.: 242 Grijalba, Manuel: activities of, in mobilization movement, 95-96 guardia: 93, 120, 280 Guevara, Ché: 13

299 Hacienda Capana: peasant mobilization against, 105-108 Haya de la Torre, Víctor Raúl: activities of, in mobilization movement, 56, 81, 83, 84 Hewitt, Cynthia N.: 57, 164 Hobsbawm, Eric: 10, 243-244 Huancabamba, community, Peru: land seizures in, 101 Huancavelica, department of, Peru: mobilization in, 205 Huancayo, Peru: as seat of Central University, 115; mentioned, 67, 76, 90, 114 Huánuco, Peru: land seizures in, 111 Huaychao, Peru: 86 Huizer, Gerrit: 6, 7, 57, 59, 104, 165, 214, 229, 241 Huntington, Samuel P.: 10, 11, 12, 210, 216, 258 Huyllay, Peru: and land invasions, 86 Inter-American Committee for International Development (CIDA): 124 International Petroleum Corporation: 143 Institute of Agrarian Reform and Colonization (IRAC): 82-83 Johnson, Chalmers: 10 Juliaca, Peru: 144 Junín, department of, Peru: sheep ranching in, 53-54; urban migration from, 53-55; new prefect for, 86-87; description of, 87-89; mobilization in, 88-99; mentioned, 111, 112, 115, 117, 145, 156, 197 Junín, Peru: 152 junta comunal: functions of, 30, 157158, 193, 281 Kennedy, John: 84 Landsberger, Henry Α.: 57, 164 land seizures: in department of Pasco, 68-70; in La Convención prov-

300 ince, 74; in department of Junín, 101; further spread of, throughout sierra, 111-116 language: Quechua, 4-5, 17, 19, 39, 64-65, 87, 99; Aymará, 5, 19; Spanish, 5, 39, 99, 105, 162, 163 Languasco, Juan: 121 latifundios: and statistics of landholdings in Peru, 23; size and number of, 24-25; operation of, 26-28, 52-53; urban migration from, 5 3 54; modifications of, 65, 207, 213 latifundismo: 22, 241 Laycacota, Peru: 125 Ledesma Izquieta, Genaro: as organizer of Pasco Federation of Communities, 68-69; mentioned, 77, 114, 136, 148, 152, 170, 237 Leguía, Augusto: 31, 32 Lerner, Daniel: 56, 186 Lewis, Oscar: 12 Lima, department of, Peru: land seizures in, 51-53, 85, 111; mentioned, 7, 17 Lima, Peru: migration to, 53-55, 88, 90 mancha india ("Indian Territory"): language of, 17, 64, 163; described, 19; concentration of landholdings in, 22-26, 30; social structure in, 27-30; political control in, 100, 123; conditions in, 105, 115, 162, 256-257; mobilization in, 238-240 Manco II: as ruler of Incan empire, 124-125 Mangin, William: 14 Mantaro River valley: 51, 139 Maoists: university students as, 148; mentioned, 134 Mao Tse-tung: 15 Mariátegui, José Carlos: as Marxist intellectual, 30 n, 75 Martínez, Héctor: 33, 105, 195 Marx, Karl: 11, 12, 43, 200 Marxists: 58 Matos Mar, José: 224

Index mayordomos: 106 Mesa Vilchas, Moisés: 143, 145-146 mestizo: defined, 19 n. 7; in power structure, 44; mentioned, 39, 112, 115 military junta: 82 mine workers' union: 68 minifundia: 214 minifundismo: 22 mining: foreign investments in, 49; and source of labor supply, 49-50; in sierra, 49, 65; effects of mechanization and strip mining on, 6670; and Cerro Corporation strike (1958), 68 Ministry of Labor: 31, 88, 128 Ministry of Labor and Indigenous Affairs: 31, 79, 133 La Molina Agrarian University: 244, 253 montaña: 70 and n. 8, 71, 129, 281 Moore, Barrington: 198 Morgan, J. Pierpont: 49 Morrison, Denton E.: 55, 185 MOSICP. SEE political parties, MOSICP Movimiento Comunal del Centro. SEE political parties, Movimiento Comunal del Centro Murra, John: 228 National Agricultural Society: 118 Neira Samañez, Hugo: on rural syndicalism, 128 Niehoff, Arthur H.: 224 Odría, Gen. Manuel: 62, 83, 84, 93, 140 Office of Indigenous Affairs: 31 Ongoy, Peru: massacre in, 120 operación desalojado: Prado's policy of, 77 La Oroya, Peru: as center of copper refining, 95; metal workers' union in, 95; mentioned, 51, 52, 67, 88, 114, 139 Ortega, Moisés: role of, in mobiliza-

Index tion movement, 93-95 OZAMOS (Zonal Offices for the Support of Social Mobilization): 259 Pallachara, Peru: land seizures in, 86 parochial culture: described, 217-218 participant culture: 217 Paruro, province of, Peru: villagers form defense league in, 101 Pasco, department of, Peru: mining and ranching in, 49-53; urban migration in, 53-55; description of, 64-65; tensions in, 65-68; land seizures in, 68-70, 86-87; repression in, 69-70, 76-78, 82; peasant mobilization in, 111-112; peasant federation organized in, 136-139; mentioned, 115, 145, 149 Pasco, Peru: 156, 162 Pasco Federation of Communities: 69, 137 patrones: relationship of, to peones on sierra hacienda, 27-28, 41-43; in department of Junín, 89-92; in department of Cuzco, 105 Paucartambo, province of, Peru: peasant mobilization in, 108 Peace Corps: 197 n. 17 peasant cooperatives: need for, 245 peasant federations: growth of, in sierra, 124-147; obstacles to growth of, 147-154 peasant mobilization: in department of Pasco, 62-70; in La Convención valley, 70-87; in department of Junín, 87-99; in department of Cuzco, 99-116; in Junín and Cuzco compared, 110-111; analysis of causes of, 155-187; theory of, 188216 peasantry: defined, 8; mobilization and political behavior of, 9-14; relations between, and latifundios, 31-34; education of, 41; isolationism of, 42 Peasant Syndical Front: as Puno peasant federation, 144

301 Pekinista (Maoist): university students as, 134 peones. SEE colonos; feudatarios personero: 30, 96, 138, 157, 174 Peruvian Indigenous Community Statute of 1936: 32, 34 Peruvian Livestock Association: 86 Petras, James: 13, 185 Piedra, Julio de la: as senator, 250251 Piel, Jean: on Indian revolt in Cuzco in 1920's, 127 Piura, department of, Peru: 112 Piura Agrarian League: 252 Pizarro, Francisco: 16, 17 Polanyi, Karl: 200 political parties: individual and group attitudes toward participation in, 217-229 - A P (Acción Popular): 85, 123, 208 —APRA (Alianza Popular Revolucionaria Americana): strength of, 35 n. 46, 51, 83-85, 122-123, 208; attitude of, toward peasants, 35 n. 46, 75, 77, 78, 114; ban on activities of (1956), 76 n. 20 -APRA Rebelde: 82 —CCP (Peruvian Peasant Confederation): 145, 150 —CDCC (Departmental Peasant Confederation of Cuzco): demands of, for land reform, 101; as political force, 108, 110, 132-133; decline and revival of, 133-135, 255-256 -CENCIRA: 260 -CGTP (Peruvian General Confederation of Labor): 253 —Communist party: 113 —CTP (Peruvian Labor Federation): 77 -FEDECOJ (Departmental Federation of Junín Comunidades): organized, 98, 139; methods of, 139143; mentioned, 147, 151, 152, 154 —FENCAP (National Federation of Peasants): 35 n. 46, 64, 145, 147, 150

302 - F I R (Leftist Revolutionary Front): 131 —FLN (Frente de Liberación Nacional): founded by Ledesma, 42 -FPCC (Provincial Peasant Federation of La Convención and Lares): development of, 129-134; mentioned, 151, 154, 254, 255 —FTAP (Peruvian Federation of Sugar Workers): 35 n. 46 - F T C (Cuzco Labor Federation): and organizing of peasants in comunidades, 130-133; mentioned, 110, 113, 114 —FUC (Cuzco University Student Federation): 101, 113-114, 133 -MOSICP (Christian Democratic Peasant Union): 132 n, 152 —Movimiento Comunal del Centro (Central Highlands Communal Movement): membership of, 142144; planned to create a nationwide peasant political party, 144147; mentioned, 151, 154 —PDC (Christian Democratic party): 83-84, 117, 119-120 Prado, Manuel: suppresses land invasions, 77-81; mentioned, 62, 69 La Prensa (Lima): on rural revolt and communist subversion, 7, 7678, 115, 122, 152, 234 Protestants: 194-195 Pumacahua, Gen. Mateo: and revolt of 1815, 125 Punabamba, Peru: villagers' life style and grievances in, 3-5; mentioned, 100, 108, 188, 189 Puno, department of, Peru: famine in, 79 Quechua communities: and radio broadcasts, 58; and land problem, 183, 198-200, 205 Quijano Obregón, Aníbal: on Peruvian uprisings, 127, 174, 189 Quispe, Justo: 255 Quispicanchis, province of, Peru: ar-

Index rests in, 102; mentioned, 105, 153 Rancas, Peru: land invasions in, 62, 69, 86 Redfield, Robert: 9, 11, 14, 44 "revindication": 98 Riesman, David: 58 Ritter, Ulrich Peter: 33, 195 Rodríguez, Gen. Leonides: 263 SAIS Cahuide: 249 SAIS Túpac Amaru II: 250 San Pablo, district of, Peru: 120 San Pedro de Cajas, department of Junín, Peru: land invasions in, 86, 88 Sartre, Jean Paul: 13 Sayhua, Peru: land seizures in, 101 Seoane, Edgardo: 83, 84, 116-117, 119 El Sepa Penitentiary: 153 Shanin, Theodore: 9, 13 Sicuani, Peru: 102, 103 sierra (highlands), Peru: traditional social structure of, 37-47; agents of social change on, 47-61 SINAMOS (National System for the Support of Social Mobilization): combines many agencies, 258-260, 262-265 sindicato federations: attempts to organize, 251-252 sindicatos: formation of, 107-108, 132-133, 160-161 Sociedad Ganadera del Pacífico: 94 El Sol (Cuzco): 115 soplones: 91 Sorokin, Pitrim: 11 Stavenhagen, Rodolfo: 146 Stinchcombe, Arthur L.: 7 subject culture: analyzed, 217-229 sugar, cultivation of: on plantations, 247; and cooperatives, 262 Tácunan, Elias: as leader of FEDECOJ, 139-142, 144-145, 152 Tahuantisuyo: Incan empire of, 128

Index

303

Tarma, province of, Peru: economy of, 88 tinteros: 33 Torres Llosa, Enrique: resigns from Belaúnde's cabinet, 119-120 Trelles, Oscar: as administrator of land-reform program, 117-119, 121-122, 239 Trotskyists: 113, 134 Tullis, LaMond: 97, 198 Túpac Amaru: as early Peruvian leader, 124-126 Túpac Amaru Cooperative: 249 Universidad Huancayo, Urcos, Peru: Urubabamba, 120

Comunal del Centro, Peru: 141, 142 102, 105 province of, Peru: 102,

Váldez Angulo, Gen. Enrique: as minister of agriculture, 249 Valer, Vládimir: political activities of, 100, 102, 133-134, 148, 237, 256 Velasco Alvarado, Gen. Juan: and land reform, 4, 239-246; urges political activism, 257-258, 262

Véliz Lizárraga, Jesús: FEDECOJ activities of, 140-142, 147-148 Verba, Sidney: 149, 217, 222 Vilcabamba, Peru: 86 VISTA: 197 Wagley, Charles: 11 Warriner, Doreen: 247 Whyte, William F.: 44, 57, 224 Williams, Lawrence K.: 224 Wolf, Eric R.: 41, 200 Workers' and Peasants' Front (Frente de Obreras y Campesinos): political activities of, 141 yanaconas. SEE colonos; feudatarios Yanamarca Valley, Peru: unrest and mobilization in, 90-99 Yauli, province of, Peru: mining and ranching in, 88 Young, Frank and Ruth: 60-61 Zárate, Raúl: and land invasions, 88 Zeitlin, Maurice: 13, 185 Zonal Offices for the Support of Social Mobilization (OZAMOS): 269