Part of Red Library's Revolutionary Politics in Central and South America Series

At long last, we finally tackle the Guatemalan Revolution and the tragic rise and fall of Jacobo Arbenz in 1954 in a monstrous, dense two-part episode on Shattered Hope: The Guatemalan Revolution and the United States 1944-1954 by Piero Gleijeses.

In part 2, we pick up on Jacobo Arbenz's presidency, Decree 900 and agrarian reform in Guatemala, the beginnings of the CIA plot to out Arbenz, and take it all the way up to the final tragic days of Arbenz as the U.S.-backed coup led by Castillo Armas closes in on Guatemala City. We do our best to wrap up the episode and talk about what we can take away from studying the history of a communist vision for Guatemala that was brutally extinguished in the 1950's.

Further Reading/References

• Piero Gleijeses
• Radio War Nerd Patreon Page
• r/badhistory post on Jacobo Arbenz
• Maria Cristina Vilanova
• Jose Manuel Fortuny
• Guatemalan Party of Labour
• Decree 900
• The Logic of Violence in Civil War
• Formosa
• Adam Curtis's Documentary on Edward Bernays and Public Relations
• Archbishop Rossell y Arellano
• Castillo Armas
• Edward Bernays
• Dean Acheson
• Operation AJAX
• Allan Dulles
• John Foster Dulles
• Operation FORTUNE
• Operation PBSUCCESS
• Council on Foreign Relations
• John Peurifoy
• When Mountains Tremble
• Operation Gladio
• Efrain Rios Montt
• Human Terrain System
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