Political developments in Latin America (1934–2020)

Fulgencio Batista seized power in a military coup, cancelling scheduled elections and ruling as a dictator.

Che Guevara's idea that a small, dedicated guerrilla band could spark a wider revolution without waiting for ideal conditions.

Castro led a failed attack on the army barracks; he was captured and imprisoned, but his trial speech 'History Will Absolve Me' made him a symbol of resistance.

Granma landing (Nov 1956) → near destruction of the group → Sierra Maestra guerrilla war → Santa Clara falls to Guevara (Dec 1958) → Batista flees (1 Jan 1959).

Roughly 40%, alongside dominance of utilities, mines and railways.

A mass volunteer campaign sending young people to teach reading in the countryside; it cut illiteracy from around 25% to near zero within a year.

Political view: Batista's 1952 coup and repression eliminated legal change, forcing armed revolt. Economic view: US-dominated sugar economy and rural poverty built the deep discontent that fuelled the guerrillas.

Neighbourhood-level watch groups that monitored citizens for 'counter-revolutionary' behaviour, making organized opposition to Castro very risky.

The USSR had subsidized Cuba for decades by buying sugar above market price and supplying cheap oil; when it collapsed, Cuba entered the severe 'Special Period' economic crisis.

A mass emigration of over 100,000 Cubans who left legally for the US, showing continued discontent even at the height of Castro's rule.

Social: land redistribution, free universal healthcare/education. Political: one-party communist rule, censorship and secret police surveillance.

A substantiated judgement that weighs both sides of the claim with specific evidence, rather than a flat description or an unranked list of factors.

A leader who claims to speak directly for 'the people' against a corrupt elite, often bypassing parties and institutions — Colombia's Gaitán is a key example.

A populist Liberal politician whose assassination on 9 April 1948 triggered the Bogotazo riots and the decade-long conflict known as La Violencia.

A brutal civil conflict (1948-1958) between Liberal and Conservative supporters in rural Colombia, killing an estimated 200,000 people.

A power-sharing deal where Colombia's Liberal and Conservative parties alternated the presidency for 16 years, ending elite violence but excluding all other parties.

The Colombian army attacked a peasant self-defence community; survivors led by Manuel Marulanda regrouped as the FARC guerrilla army instead of surrendering.

Irregular fighting by small, mobile groups using ambush and hit-and-run tactics rather than direct confrontation with a stronger army.

By taxing, and later trafficking, cocaine production — turning a small rural rebel group into a well-funded army of 15,000-20,000 fighters at its peak.

An estimated 220,000+ people killed and 7-8 million internally displaced, making it one of the world's largest displacement crises outside a formal war.

Álvaro Uribe (2002-2010) pursued a hardline military strategy that weakened the FARC; Juan Manuel Santos (2010-2018) instead negotiated the 2016 peace accord.

Women made up 30-40% of fighters and sometimes gained command roles and equality unavailable in civilian life, but many also faced forced contraception, forced abortion, and sexual violence.

The peace accord disbanded the FARC as an armed force, but dissident FARC factions and other groups like the ELN continued fighting afterward.

Exclusionary democracy → Gaitán's assassination (1948) → La Violencia → National Front (1958) → Marquetalia attack (1964) → founding of the FARC.

General Augusto Pinochet led a coup that overthrew elected president Salvador Allende, who died during the attack on the presidential palace.

DINA (Dirección de Inteligencia Nacional) -- ran torture centres and assassinated exiled opponents abroad (e.g. Orlando Letelier, Washington DC, 1976).

Free-market 'shock therapy' -- privatization, deregulation, cuts to state spending -- designed by the 'Chicago Boys', Chilean economists trained under Milton Friedman.

The 1980 Constitution, passed in a controlled plebiscite, created an authoritarian-democratic hybrid and let him rule until at least 1989.

Chileans voted on whether Pinochet should rule another 8 years. 56% voted 'No' -- the first peaceful, ballot-based defeat of a Latin American military dictator.

Patricio Aylwin, a Christian Democrat leading the Concertación coalition of anti-Pinochet parties -- took office March 1990.

A truth commission set up by Aylwin that documented roughly 3,000 deaths and disappearances under Pinochet, without power to prosecute -- a transitional justice tool.

He stayed Commander-in-Chief of the army until 1998, then became senator-for-life under the 1980 Constitution's amnesty and immunity clauses -- the military retained a veto over civilian rule.

1) 1973-77 terror phase (DINA, Caravan of Death) -> 2) 1977-82 institutionalization (1980 Constitution) -> 3) 1982-88 economic crisis and mass protest -> 4) 1988 plebiscite defeat -> 5) 1990 transition.

Economic: 1982 debt crisis exposed the model's fragility and fuelled protest. Social: mass 'National Protests' (1983-86) and a reorganized Catholic Church-backed opposition rebuilt civil society's confidence to challenge the regime.

{{transitional justice|how a new government addresses past human-rights abuses}} -- e.g. truth commissions, reparations, limited trials -- balancing justice against a fragile new democracy's stability.

For: low inflation and growth returned by the late 1980s. Against: growth relied on huge inequality, a 1982 financial collapse, and thousands of human-rights victims -- the 'miracle' was narrow and costly.