Víctor Raúl Haya de la Torre

de la Torre (right) in 1961 with the President of the Bundestag Eugen Gerstenmaier

Víctor Raúl Haya de la Torre (born February 22, 1895 in Trujillo , Peru ; † August 2, 1979 or August 3, 1979 in Lima ) was a Peruvian politician who founded the Alianza Popular Revolucionaria Americana and one of the leading figures in Peru 20th century politics became.

His election as president was prevented twice by the Peruvian military.

Life

Víctor Raúl Haya de la Torre was born in Trujillo in the north of the country. In 1913 he enrolled at the University of Trujillo to study literature, where he met the Peruvian poet César Vallejo , with whom he developed a friendship. He then moved to the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos in Lima .

The movement to reform the universities

Haya de la Torre was a leading protagonist of the Latin American university reform movement that originated in Argentina . Originally, the protest was directed against only a few professors who were considered incompetent, but then quickly expanded. "In addition to the occupation of the chairs through competition and on time, the demand for free teaching ( cátedra libre ) and participation of students in the self-governing bodies were concrete proposals for amendments to testing methods and teaching." The main demands of the movement were the President Augusto B. Leguia y Salcedo met in September 1919.

In 1919 the national student congress took place in Cusco . The political goals of the students went far beyond the realm of the university and indicated a turn to national issues. All levels of education should primarily be based on the situation in their own country.

During his studies in Trujillo, Haya de la Torre propagated the idea of the Universidades Populares ( People's Universities ). After taking over the presidency of the Federacion de Estudiantes de Peru , he was able to realize his plans. The first People's University was inaugurated on January 21, 1921. "The aim of this company was to make the culture and knowledge of the national universities, which had frozen in their traditional and plutocratic structure, available to the subclasses."

A second Universidad Popular was founded in the working class Vitarte. The foundation of the Volksuniversität was an important step in setting the course.
"1. With the Universidades Populares , the reform movement overcomes its university boundaries and establishes itself as a political force. At the same time, this leads to a massive turn to Peruvian reality among the student body involved. The processing of these experiences will determine their political consciousness in the future.
2. In the institutional context of the Universidades Populares, the non-university influence of the next generation of academics is linked to the labor movement . Student activists and industrial workers thus form the nucleus that will later form the mass base of APRA. "

Exile and return to Peru

In 1923, during the government of President Augusto B. Leguía, Haya de la Torre had to go into exile. On 7 May 1924 he founded in Mexico City , the APRA and the pan-Latin American movement of "Aprismo". In 1928 an attempt to return to Peru from Panama failed and he was deported to Bremen by ship .

In 1931 he returned to Peru to run for the presidential election. In the same year he was arrested and spent 15 months in prison. His party was banned until 1934 and again from 1935 to 1945. In 1945, José Luis Bustamante y Rivero became president with the support of APRA. When some party dissidents in Callao committed an uprising in 1948 , the party was banned again. In November of the same year Manuel A. Odría seized power and Haya de la Torre was forced to seek asylum in the Colombian embassy in Lima.

Haya de la Torre was able to return to Peru in 1954 and his party was re-approved in 1956. However, until 1962 he lived mostly abroad. In 1962 he ran again for the office of president and won the election by a narrow margin, but missed the third of the votes required for the election. A military junta took power and canceled the elections. In the new elections in 1963 he was defeated by Fernando Belaúnde Terry . His party remained popular.

In 1979 Haya became President of the Constituent Assembly. He signed the new constitution on his deathbed on July 12th.

Political ideas

Haya de la Torre advocated a system of Latin American (or, as he himself preferred, "Indo-American") solutions to Latin American problems. He called on the region to fight both "US imperialism" and Soviet communism. He campaigned for a universal democracy, for equal rights for the indigenous population and for a socialist economic policy including an agrarian reform with collective land ownership and state control of industry.

In addition, he wanted to fight the oligarchy of large landowners, which had dominated Peru since the days of Spanish colonial rule ( viceroyalty of Peru ), and put a socialist-oriented elite in their place. However, in return for the re-admission of his party, he sought proximity to the conservative political spectrum, whereby he had thrown most of his progressive socialist ideals overboard in the 1950s. In addition, Haya de la Torres dominance within the APRA led to a firmly established autocratic hierarchy system within the APRA, which caused some of the most important political talents of the APRA to migrate to the Marxist left.

Quote

¡Ni con Washington ni con Moscú! (Neither with Washington nor with Moscow!)

literature

Günther Maihold: José Carlos Mariátegui. National project and indigenous problem . Athenaeum, Frankfurt am Main 1988, ISBN 3-610-09711-6 .
Herbert Wendt : The black-white-red continent. Latin America - reformers and rebels . Gerhard Stalling Verlag, Oldenburg 1964.
Nikolaus Werz : Victor Raúl Haya de la Torre . In: Nikolaus Werz (ed.): Populists, revolutionaries, statesmen. Politicians in Latin America . Vervuert, Frankfurt am Main 2010. ISBN 978-3-86527-513-4 . Pp. 368–383 (with a detailed annotated bibliography).

Web links

Commons : Víctor Raúl Haya de la Torre - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

^ Hans Bach: Biographien zur Weltgeschichte , Lexikon, VEB Deutscher Verlag der Wissenschaften, Berlin 1989, p. 228f.
↑ His varied interests and the friendships that developed as a result are unusual for a politician. He was later friends with Albert Einstein , Arnold J. Toynbee and Romain Rolland . - Herbert Wendt: The black-white-red continent. Latin America - reformers and rebels . Gerhard Stalling Verlag, Oldenburg 1964, p. 230.
^ Günther Maihold: José Carlos Mariátegui. National project and indigenous problem . Athenaeum, Frankfurt am Main 1988, p. 188.
^ Günther Maihold: José Carlos Mariátegui. National project and indigenous problem . Athenaeum, Frankfurt am Main 1988, p. 197.
^ Günther Maihold: José Carlos Mariátegui. National project and indigenous problem . Athenaeum, Frankfurt am Main 1988, p. 198.
↑ De la Torre became a minister with no portfolio. - see. Herbert Wendt: The black-white-red continent. Latin America - reformers and rebels . Gerhard Stalling Verlag, Oldenburg 1964, p. 232.
↑ “The Indians I saw were abused and beaten with riding crops. They were ignorant and lived in misery. I was shocked by how deep they had sunk since Peru was conquered by Pizarro in 1532. I could no longer watch these conditions. So I became an obsessive fighter against the injustice inflicted on the Indians. ”Quoted from Herbert Wendt: The black-white-red continent. Latin America - reformers and rebels . Gerhard Stalling Verlag, Oldenburg 1964, p. 228.
↑ "With the Quechua he carried the proud Inca nickname Pachacuti - the man who moves the earth." Quoted from Herbert Wendt: The black-white-red continent. Latin America - reformers and rebels . Gerhard Stalling Verlag, Oldenburg 1964, p. 231.

personal data
SURNAME	Haya de la Torre, Víctor Raúl
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Peruvian politician, founder of APRA
DATE OF BIRTH	February 22, 1895
PLACE OF BIRTH	Trujillo , Peru
DATE OF DEATH	August 2, 1979 or August 3, 1979
Place of death	Lima

[1] Hans Bach: Biographien zur Weltgeschichte , Lexikon, VEB Deutscher Verlag der Wissenschaften, Berlin 1989, p. 228f.

[2] His varied interests and the friendships that developed as a result are unusual for a politician. He was later friends with Albert Einstein , Arnold J. Toynbee and Romain Rolland . - Herbert Wendt: The black-white-red continent. Latin America - reformers and rebels . Gerhard Stalling Verlag, Oldenburg 1964, p. 230.

[3] Günther Maihold: José Carlos Mariátegui. National project and indigenous problem . Athenaeum, Frankfurt am Main 1988, p. 188.

[4] Günther Maihold: José Carlos Mariátegui. National project and indigenous problem . Athenaeum, Frankfurt am Main 1988, p. 197.

[5] Günther Maihold: José Carlos Mariátegui. National project and indigenous problem . Athenaeum, Frankfurt am Main 1988, p. 198.

[6] De la Torre became a minister with no portfolio. - see. Herbert Wendt: The black-white-red continent. Latin America - reformers and rebels . Gerhard Stalling Verlag, Oldenburg 1964, p. 232.

[7] “The Indians I saw were abused and beaten with riding crops. They were ignorant and lived in misery. I was shocked by how deep they had sunk since Peru was conquered by Pizarro in 1532. I could no longer watch these conditions. So I became an obsessive fighter against the injustice inflicted on the Indians. ”Quoted from Herbert Wendt: The black-white-red continent. Latin America - reformers and rebels . Gerhard Stalling Verlag, Oldenburg 1964, p. 228.

[8] "With the Quechua he carried the proud Inca nickname Pachacuti - the man who moves the earth." Quoted from Herbert Wendt: The black-white-red continent. Latin America - reformers and rebels . Gerhard Stalling Verlag, Oldenburg 1964, p. 231.