El Jefe y el Partido

This chapter explores the complex relationship between Haya and the political party he created. Aware from the moment he entered politics that his life could be in danger, Haya deliberately built a lasting institution with a coherent ideology and a solid organization. Yet he also nourished a cult of personality and demanded total allegiance of his followers, leading some to accuse the party of being a quasi-religious sect. While youth groups socialized young Apristas to be disciplined and loyal, Haya’s critics (often former Apristas) attempted to undermine his image by portraying him as a lover of luxury and pointing to his alleged homosexuality. The tension between party organization and a strong personalist leadership continues to define the party today.

Marinera with the Yankees

This chapter explores Haya’s changing relationship with the United States. As an exiled student leader he denounced “Yankee imperialism” and alarmed observers in the U.S. State Department. Yet once he entered Peruvian politics, Haya understood the importance of cultivating U.S.-Latin American relations. While in hiding he maintained relations with U.S. intellectuals and politicians and sought U.S. support for his embattled party. His writings increasingly embraced democracy and he maneuvered to position APRA as an ally in the U.S. fight fascism during the 1930s and 40s, and then communism during the Cold War. The five years he spent in Lima’s Colombian embassy awaiting the resolution of his political asylum case, made him into an international symbol of the democratic fight against dictatorship. He would always remain a critic of U.S. support for dictatorships in Latin America.

Conclusion

Studies of Haya have ranged from the hagiographic to those that demonize him. By following the political and personal challenges he faced, this book has sought to explore the contradictions of Haya’s personality over the course of a long life. His alleged homosexuality affected his politics. He remains a relevant figure as Latin America and the world undergo a new phase of populism.

Broken Promises

This chapter follows the story of how APRA first promoted equal political rights for women and then relegated women to second-class status within the party. Women helped to build the party from its foundations. Yet Apristas put social class before gender to argue for caution in extending political rights lest women support conservative candidates. Haya’s rivalry with the party’s most powerful female leader, Magda Portal may have contributed to women’s lack of equal status within APRA. APRA had little to do with women’s finally receiving the vote in Peru in 1955.

Bullets and Ballots

Following Haya’s loss of the 1931 presidential election in Peru, many Apristas embarked on the path of violent revolution. Successive Peruvian governments banned APRA from politics and the party operated underground. The chapter chronicles’ Haya and his party’s attempts to gain power through insurgencies, elections and military coups. Haya gradually abandoned hopes of a revolution or a military coup, and had negotiated the party’s definitive way back to legality and democratic participation. In 1962 when he ran for president, lasting enmities led the military to intervene against him, and to discredit him with accusations of homosexuality.

Revolution for Export

The chapter follows Haya during a remarkable international saga during which he founded APRA as a transnational political party. Haya found himself at key locations during the global transition toward mass politics of the early twentieth century: Argentina following the university reform movement, post-revolutionary Mexico, post-revolutionary Russia, England during the rise of Laborism and Berlin during the rise of Nazism. He borrowed elements from each of these political movements to formulate Aprismo, a Marxist inspired anti-imperialist revolutionary ideology for Latin America. Haya believed that Latin America already had its own home-grown revolution, the Mexican Revolution, a model to be replicated in Peru and the rest of the continent

Introduction

The introduction describes Haya’s contributions as an ideologue, as a propagandist, as an institution builder and as a political pragmatist. In addition to building APRA as Peru’s longest-lasting political party, Haya forged a vision of a united Latin America. The introduction explains Haya’s significance as a key figure for understanding the roots of Latin American populism. It points to his alleged homosexuality as a factor possibly influencing his political choices.