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Labour and the War-Time Alliance in Costa Rica 1943–1948*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2009

Eugene D. Miller
Eugene D. Miller
Affiliation:
Research Fellow at the Bildner Center for Western Hemisphere Studies, University Center, City University of New York.
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Extract

Costa Rica has won praise for its democratic traditions and social stability. Social scientists have attributed this to many factors: the country's benign colonial past, its small and relatively homogeneous population, the existence of a land owning peasantry, and the development, beginning in the 1930s, of a social welfare state. As it did elsewhere, the Great Depression marked a crossroads in Costa Rica's development. In response to the collapse of its international markets and the ensuing labour unrest, the state jettisoned its economic liberalism, and assumed an interventionist role in the management of the economy and labour–capital relations. This fundamentally reformist role developed through the 1930s and culminated in 1943 with the passage of a package of Christian-based social reforms including a comprehensive labour code under the administration of Rafael Calderón Guardia (1940–4).

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Articles
Information
Journal of Latin American Studies , Volume 25 , Issue 3 , October 1993 , pp. 515 - 541
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1993

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References

1 The importance and extent of a land-owning peasantry is a matter of historical debate. See Seligson, Mitchell, Peasants of Costa Rica and the Development of Agrarian Capitalism (Madison, 1980)Google Scholar.

2 For works that argue the reformist nature of the Costa Rican state see Bolaños, Manuel Rojas, Lucha Social y Guerra Civil en Costa Rica, 1940–1948 (San José, 1989)Google Scholar; Stone, Samuel, La Dinastía De Los Conquistadores: La Crisis Del Poder en la Costa Rica Contemporánea (San José, 1982)Google Scholar; Creedman, Theodore, ‘Development of Costa Rica 1956–1944: Politics of an Emerging Welfare State In a Patriarchical Society’, unpubl. PhD. Diss., University of Maryland, 1971Google Scholar.

3 On 1 May 1941 Calderón announced his intention to submit a body of laws derived from concepts of social Christian justice to the Congress. When presenting the reforms to the Congress, President Calderón explained that the legislation was ‘based on a point of view entirely Christian’. Suárez, Juan Francisco Rojas, Costa Rica en la Segunda Guerra Mundial: 7 de diciembre de 1941–7 diciembre de 1943 (San José, 1945), p. 275Google Scholar.

4 These were the strikes by the shoemakers in San José, the sugar workers in Turrialba, and the banana workers in Limón. For a comparative discussion of the three see Miller, Eugene D., ‘The Labor Movement in Costa Rica: from the Great Depression to the Cold War’, unpubl. PhD diss., City University of New York, 1992Google Scholar, Chapter II.

5 Ricardo Jiménez and Cleto González Víquez, representatives of powerful coffee interests, controlled the presidency for twenty of the thirty years from 1906 to 1936. For an examination of the origin of the Costa Rican ruling class see Samuel Stone, La Dinastía De Los Conquistadores.

6 Cruz, Rodolfo Cerdas, ‘Costa Rica After 1930’, in Bethell, Leslie (ed.), Central America After Independence (New York, 1991), p. 282Google Scholar.

7 In general, the operative decree, Article 31 of the Reglamento de Correos of 31 August 1921, was not enforced.

8 See Solorzano, Fabio (comp.), Indice Alfabético de Leyes y Acuerdos del Poder Legislativo de 1920 hasta el Decreto No. 865 de 17 de Junio 1947, Acuerdo 9 de 10 de Julio 1947 (San José, 1947)Google Scholar.

9 A partial list of the enactments include: Law No. 36, dated 13 Feb. 1931; Law No. 17, dated 9 May 1931; Law No. 9, dated 5 Aug. 1931; Law No. 26, dated 24 Sep. 1931; Law No. 57, dated 6 June 1933; Law No. 156, dated 3 Aug. 1933; Law No. 178, dated 8 Aug. 1933; Law No. 234, dated 23 Aug. 1934; and. Law No. 123, dated 23 July 193;. Colección de Leyes y Decretos (San José, years cited).

10 The party was founded in 1931 and proposed both a Maximum and Minimum Plan. It immediately characterised its Maximum Plan as unattainable and pledged itself to carry out the Minimum Plan through legislative action and worker mobilisation. Archivo Nacional de Costa Rica (ANCR) Sección Legislativa. ‘Programa Mínima y Máxima de Partido Comunista de Costa Rica’, No. 16397, 1932.

11 La Prensa Libre, 2 June 1932.

12 The Oficina de Técnica de Trabajo established in 1933 was the department within the Ministry of Labour charged with the principal responsibility of monitoring compliance to governmental degrees.

13 The CTCR was formally inscribed in the Labour Ministry's registry on 1 May 1945.

14 The Sindicato Nacional de Trabajadores de Calzados (SNTC) was founded under the influence of the CPCR and the Marxist Confederación de Trabajadores de América Latina (CTAL) in 1939. It affiliated with CTAL at its founding. Trabajo, 28 10 1939, p. 1Google Scholar. (Trabajo was the official organ of the CPCR.)

15 Creedman, Theodore, ‘Development of Costa Rica 1936–1944: Politics of an Emerging Welfare State in a Patriarchical Society’, unpubl. PhD. Diss., University of Maryland, 1971Google Scholar. For an examination of the social forces that prompted these changes see Bolaños, Manuel Rojas, Lucha Social y Guerra Civil en Costa Rica, 1940–1948 (San José, 1979)Google Scholar.

16 The letters are reprinted in Backer, James, La Iglesia y el Sindicalismo en Costa Rica (San José, 1975)Google Scholar, Appendix H.

17 On 26 Aug. 1943 the Code was approved by the Congress by 38 votes to zero, with six delegates not in attendance. Approximately 2,000 CTCR and PVP supporters were present to applaud the proceedings. US National Archive (USNA) 818.504–506, dispatch dated 28 Aug. 1943.

18 See the Código de Trabajo of 26 Aug. 1943, compiled by Alvaro Ruíz Valverde (San José, 1943).

19 The Labour Code was a compromise document. It integrated Marxist, social Christian and state bureaucratic tendencies. For a full discussion of the Code see Miller, ‘The Labor Movement in Costa Rica’, Chapter III.

20 Ibid., p. 74.

21 USNA, 818.504, dispatches dated 25 March 1945 and 19 Oct. 1945. US Embassy reports were based on Ministry of Labour statistics. A number of these unions were little more than paper organisations.

22 The figure is extrapolated from the 1950 census, which placed the economically active population at 271, 984, and the 1927 census. In 1950 agricultural workers comprised 54 percent and service workers 14 percent of the EAP. Dirección General de Estadística y Censo, Censo de Población de 1950, Cuadro XL (San José, 1951)Google Scholar and ANCR Censo de 1927.

23 The influence on Núñez of his US education is underscored by historians of the period. Rodolfo Cerdas argues that the fundamental influences on Father Núñez were: (1) the Catholic Church, more specifically, Monseñor Sanabria; (2) exposure to US labour leaders and their anti-communist ideology; and (3) after 1950 the Partido Liberación Nacional of which Father Núñez became one of the principal figures. Rodolfo Cerdas Cruz, Guerra Fria y Movimiento Obrero: Costa Rica, Le Guerra Civil de 1948 y La Liquidación Del Movimiento Sindical, n. d. TMs [photocopy], p. 27.

24 For an examination of the case see the final section of this paper.

25 Núñez Papers, Sermon pronounced by Benjamín Núñez, 2 Aug. 1943, in the Basilica of the Angels, Cartago.

26 See note 11.

27 Sanabria, Victor, ‘Discurso de Excelentísmo Señor Arzobispo de San José Mons. Dr. Don Víctor Sanabria Martínez’, in Memoria de la Primera Convención Solemne de la Confederación Costarricense de Trabajo Rerum Novarum, 1 05 1945Google Scholar.

28 Manuel Mora, interviews by author, June and Aug. 1990, Costa Rica, tape recording. The coincidence of Sanabria's and Mora's philosophic world view as well as the warmth of their personal relations are given extraordinary expression in a series of letters exchanged between the two men after Mora went into exile in May 1948. See Archivo de Curía Metropolitana de San José (AACR) correspondence files. May–Aug. 1948.

29 Quadragesimo Anno, written forty years after Rerum Novarum, reflected a much higher degree of anti-communism. It is noteworthy that Sanabria adopted the less polemic document as the namesake for his labour confederation. See Pius, Pope XI, Quadragesimo Anno: On Reconstructing the Social Order (Washington D.C., 1942), pp. 36–41Google Scholar. This edition, published by the National Catholic Welfare Conference, was the authorised English translation of the document. For a discussion of the distinction between the papal encyclicals as applied in Latin America, see Levine, Daniel H., The Catholic Church in Latin America: Venezuela and Colombia (Princeton, 1981)Google Scholar.

30 AACR, 25 Feb. 1944 Memorandum on CCTRN by Sanabria. The organisations of Catholic Action were designed to address the spiritual needs of the population and included the following: La Liga Espiritual Obrera (LEO), and La Juventud Obrero Católica (JOC). For a discussion of Catholic Action in Latin America see Vallier, Ivan, Catholicism, Social Control and Modernisation in Latin America (Santa Cruz, 1970), pp. 63–71Google Scholar.

31 Sanabria, ‘Discurso de Excelentísmo Señor Arzobispo’, 1945.

32 As early as 1945 the CCTRN was receiving funds from wealthy agri-businessmen. See AACR, letter from Núñez to ‘A Group of Esteemed Gentlemen that with their Generosity have Offered Pecuniary Help to the C. C. T. R. N.’, dated 14 Sep. 1946.

33 The cell, which was to meet every 15 days, was defined as a revolutionary family where members met to discuss local and national problems. Party materials were read collectively in order to raise the consciousness of members. Ferreto, Arnoldo, Ediciones Vanguardia: Los Principios de Organization del Partido Vanguardia Popular (San José, 1946), p. 14Google Scholar.

34 What follows is taken from AACR, folder marked Doc. Partido Vanguardia Popular, Datos Para Un Estudio del Partido Vanguardia Popular. Judging by its content, the report was written by a party or ex-party member in 1946. Articles cited in the Report were taken from the Partido Vanguardia Popular Statutes.

35 Ortega, Víctor Hugo Acuña, ‘Vida Cotidiana, Condiciones de Trabajo y Organización Sindical: El Caso de Los Zapateros en Costa Rica (1934–1955)’, Revista de Historia (1988), p. 229Google Scholar.

36 Mora placed the party's strength at 3,000. Valverde, Manual Mora, Discursos: 1934–1979 (San José, 1980), pp. 197–211Google Scholar.

37 Mora had received 10 percent of the vote in the 1940 election. In 1946 the PVP elected six members to the Congress as well as numerous local officials. See Cerdas, José Manuel and Contreras, Gerardo, Los Años 40: Historia de una Político de Alianzas (San José, 1988), pp. 27–32Google Scholar and pp. 115–20.

38 Bethell, Leslie and Roxborough, Ian, ‘Latin America between the Second World War and the Cold War: Some Reflections on the 1945–1948 Conjuncture’, journal of Latin American Studies, vol. 20, part II (05 1988), pp. 167–89CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

39 Ferreto placed cellular membership in 1944 at 2,000. Ferreto, Arnoldo, Materiales de discusión del 1° Congreso Extraordinario del Partido Vanguardia Popular Año 1944 – Informe sobre Organización (San José, 1944), p. 3Google Scholar.

40 Though the rate of growth was sizeable, it should be kept in mind that membership in the PVP never rose above 0.5 percent of the total population or 1.18 percent of the country's economically active population (EAP). Dirección General de Estadística y Censo, Censo de Población de 1950, Cuadro XL.

41 See Estatutos del Partido Comunista de Costa Rica, 1937 (Costa Rica, 1937).

42 According to Alvaro Montero Vega, an influential member of the PVP at the time, relations between the PVP and the CTCR were “may estrecha” and that it was easy for the PVP to influence the actions of the confederation. Alvaro Montero Vega, Interview by author, June 1990, San José, Costa Rica, tape recording.

43 Popular, Partido Vanguardia, Correspondencia 1944–1945 –Sección San José, Sector Numero Cuatro, Circular dated 5 07 1945Google Scholar and Circular dated 21 June 1945. Referring to meetings to be held in Central Valley villages of Uruca and Tibas on 3 and 8 July, 1945, the June circular read as follows. ‘Es necesario y urgente que esos mítines tengan el mayor éxito posible. Los camaradas responsables de esos sectores deberán esforzarse por movilizar el mayo[r] número de gente posible a cada uno de esos mítines.’

44 The CTCR was involved in election campaigns as early as 1944. Trabajo, 15 July 1944, p. 2.

45 For the CTCR Board of Directors see Trabajo, 20 Sep. 1947, p. 2.

46 Teodora Picado, Vice President under Calderón, was elected on the PRN ticket in 1944.

47 For evidence of displeasure with the Labour Code see, for example, USNA, 818.504–506, Dispatch, dated 21 June 1943.

48 Daily headlines attest to the acrimonious dichotomy in the country's political culture. The Diario de Costa Rica was unrelenting in identifying the Calderón Administration as Calderón-Comunismo and communism with foreign subservience. For an analysis of Cold War tensions and anti-Communist sentiments in Costa Rica during this period, see Schifter, Jacobo, La Fase Oculta de la Guerra Civil en Costa Rica (San José, 1979)Google Scholar.

49 Reflective of the crisis was a circular sent from Section IV in San José to all sectors urging sector leaders to remove doubt from ‘un enorme’ number of militants that the party was working in an opportunistic manner in its continuing alliance with Picado. See the Annual Report for 1945 written by Efraín Rodríguez, Secretary of Organisation for Section IV in San José. Rodríguez wrote that a tremendous amount of effort had been spent throughout the year to stem the disintegration of cells. The effort, he wrote, was successful; ranks were reduced but reflected greater militancy. Popular, Partido Vanguardia, Correspondencia 1944–1945, Circular dated 5 10 1945Google Scholar and Annual Report for 1945.

50 These included a proposed land reform, measures passed to ensure minimum prices to small producers and punishment for speculators, the building of low cost housing and the pledge to uphold the social reforms.

51 ‘If we break with the government there are two possibilities: the government will become so weak it will fall or it will make concessions to the reactionaries.’ Mora, Discursos, p. 184.

52 Comité Seccional de San José de Vanguardia Popular, Hemos tenido una político incorrecta (San José, 1945)Google Scholar.

53 Earl Browder was head of the United States Communist Party (CPUSA) during the Second World War. His policies were marked by efforts to attain a united front of all progressive forces to combat the fascist threat. In 1944 he dissolved the CPUSA and formed the Communist Political Association of the United States. After the Second World War his collaborationist approach fell under intense attack from Communist hardliners. The most famous of these was mounted by the French Communist, Jacques Duclos. For an insider view of the CPUSA during Browder years, see Chaney, George, A Long Journey (Chicago, 1968), pp. 137–49Google Scholar.

54 Benjamín Núñez, interview by author, June 1990, Costa Rica, tape recording. It is extremely difficult to prove or disprove such charges. Cases in which they were made were in regard to the National Light Company, and the Tabacalera Costarricense. See USNA, 808.504–506, dispatches dated 19 June 1945 and 7 April 1945.

55 Trabajo, 21 Dec. 1946, p. 1.

56 In May 1946 at an International Labour Organisation (ILO) meeting the AFL mounted an attack on Lombardo Toledano's leadership of CTAL by winning the support of delegates from Chile, Canada, Peru, Venezuela, and Costa Rica; of these the most influential delegate was Núñez. Radosh, Ronald, American Labor and United States Foreign Policy (New York, 1969), pp. 348–71Google Scholar.

57 The reform was to be based on the lands administered by the Junta de Custodia de la Propiedad Enemiga. The Junta, established during the war, controlled or confiscated properties owned by individuals of German and/or Italian origin who had been placed on the ‘Proclaimed List of Enemy Nationals’ by the USA and Great Britain during the Second World War.

58 The inflexibility of the party increased from this time on. After its illegalisation it adopted characteristics of a Leninist party. Francisco Rivas, union official of the contemporary CTCR, interview by author, March 1990, Costa Rica, tape recording.

59 The committee was established by an agreement signed by the CTCR and the CCTRN. Williams, Phillip, The Catholic Church and Politics in Nicaragua and Costa Rica (Pittsburgh, 1989), pp. 97–120CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

60 AACR, letter from Núñez to Guzmán dated 15 April 1944.

61 In a call for Vanguardia party members to attend a meeting organised by the construction workers for 17 Dec. 1944, Federico Caravajal, Seccional Secretario Sindical, warned ‘recuerden que el sindicato tiene gran número de militantes reaccionarios y que por la apatía y la falta de visión de los camaradas puede caer en manos de la reacción…. y que perdieron el proyecto de no reelección en el Congreso.’ Popular, Partido Vanguardia, Correspondencia 1944–1945, letter from Federico Caravajal, to members of the cell, Antonio Hernández, written between 27 10. 1944 and 14 Nov. 1944Google Scholar.

62 Law No. 25, 17 Nov. 1944, Colección de Leyes y Decretos (San José, 1945).

63 Núñez had met Romualdi in the early 1940s in the United States. It is fair to speculate that the introduction came through the offices of the CUA and/or the National Catholic Welfare Conference (NCWC). Benjamín Núñez, interview by author, May 1990, Costa Rica, tape recording. Founded in 1919, by the 1940s the NCWC was involved in nurturing a Catholic oriented labour movement in Latin America through its Social Action Department. For a history of the early period of the NCWC see McKeown, Elizabeth, American Catholics and World War I (New York, 1988)Google Scholar.

64 Trabajo, 14 Dec. 1946, p. 1.

65 Among the other charges made against Romualdi was that during the war he was employed by Nelson Rockefeller's Office of Inter-American Affairs. Ronald Radosh, American Labor and United States Foreign Policy, pp. 348–71.

66 Trabajo, 2 March 1946, p. 2.

67 The most significant shift was the growing practice of ‘home work’. Subsequently the CTCR-affiliated shoemakers viewed the decision to allow home work as a great error. Eduardo Mora, interview by author, June 1990, Costa Rica, tape recording.

68 ANCR, Trabajo y Seguridad Social, Sindicatos, No. 73.

69 AACR, from the Episcopado Odio, Correspondencia 1950–1954. The document was written in February of 1947 and misfiled. In spite of its association with the opposition, the CCTRN diverged from it on the question of the income tax. See below.

70 Ulate, the owner publisher of the Diario de Costa Rica, ran against Calderón Guardia on the Partido Unión Nacional (PUN) ticket in the disputed election of 1948. He served as President from 1949 to 1953. For a recent biography see Torres, José Luis, Otilio Ulate: su Partido y sus Luchas (San José, 1985)Google Scholar.

71 For accounts of the events, see Ameringer, Charles, Don Pepe: A. Political Biography of José Figueres of Costa Rica (Albuquerque, 1978), pp. 34–45Google Scholar; Bell, John Patrick, Crisis in Costa Rica: The 1948 Revolution (Austin, 1971)Google Scholar, Chapter 6; Schifter, Jacobo, Cost Rica 1948: Análisis de documentos confidenciales del Departamento de Estado (San José, 1982)Google Scholar. See also, , Aguilar, B. Oscar, Costa Ricaj sus hechos póliticos de 1948 (San José, 1978)Google Scholar. For a testimonial anti-government account see Durán, Roberto, Huelga de Brazos Caídos (San José, 1983)Google Scholar.

72 Leyes y Decretos, Law No. 837, 20 Dec. 1946 (San José, 1947). For an examination of the role the income tax played in the events of 1947 and 1948 see Rojas Bolaños, Lucha Social y Guerra Civil, p. 122.

73 Diario de Costa Rica, 22 Dec. 1946, p. 1. The committee was comprised of individuals from the Cámara Nacional de Agricultura y Ganadería, the Cámara de Industria de Costa Rica, the Sindicato Patronal de Cafetaleros, the Sindicato Patronal de Productores de Azúcar, and the Asociación Sindical de Comerciantes Importadores y Mayoristas. It also included members of Congress.

74 Ameringer, Don Pepe, p. 44.

75 La Ultima Hora, 25 Sep. 1947, p. 1.

76 Trabajo, 20 Sep. 1947, pp. 1–3.

77 Inflation increased from a base of 100 in 1940 to 212.53 in 1947. Hernández, María de los Angeles Aguilar, ‘Clase Trabajadora y Organización Sindical en Costa Rica 1948–1971’, unpubl. PhD Diss., Thesis, Ciudad Universitaria ‘Rodrigo Facio’, Costa Rica, 1987, pp. 7–8Google Scholar.

78 Trabajo, 4 Oct. 1947, p. 4.

79 Núñez's statement was quoted in USNA, 818.504 dispatch dated 18 Sep. 1947.

80 As with the Huelga de Brazos Caídos, the 12 October rally is discussed in Ameringer, Don Pepe, pp. 34–45; Bell, Crisis in Costa Rica, Chapter 6; Schifter, Costa Rica 1948: Análisis; Backer, La Iglesia y el Sindicalismo, pp. 144–51; and Núñez, Benjamín, ‘Informe: Sobre las Relaciones entre el Movimiento Obrero Católico Costarricense y La Autoridad Eclesiástica, 1956.’ TMs [photocopy] (1956), pp. 37–42Google Scholar. Backer's account is taken primarily from Nú˜ez.

81 USNA, 818.504–506, dispatch dated 18 Sep. 1947. Trabajo, 20 Sep, 1947, p. 8.

82 The prohibition was communicated through an ecclesiastical circular. Only Santiago Núñez was given permission to join his brother on 12 Oct. See AACR, Oct. 1947 correspondence files; see also Nunez, ‘Informe’.

83 Benjamín Nú˜ez, interview by author, June 1990, San José, Costa Rica, tape recording. Nú˜ez account was, in all major points, identical to his ‘Informe’ written twenty-five years earlier.

84 Nú˜ez went on to define the demonstration not merely as a negative, but also as a positive fight for the benefit of the working class. AACR, letter from Núñez to Sanabria dated 11 Oct. 1947.

85 Diario de Costa Rica, 13 Oct. 1947. Diario placed the size of the rally at 50,000 and warmly congratulated the CCTRN. According to CCTRN Vice-President Monge at least 60,000 supporters participated in the CCTRN demonstration. Serafino Romualdi Papers Labor-Management Document Center, Martin P. Catherwood Library, Cornell University, 136–67, L-MDC, Box 3 File folder 1, letter from Monge to Romualdi dated 16 Oct. 1947.

86 USNA, 818.504–506, dispatch, dated 2 Oct. 1947. When questioned about the 1947 assistance, Núñez did not deny it. Benjamín Núñez, interview by author, June 1990, San José, Costa Rica, tape recording.

87 USNA, 818.504–506, dispatch dated 1; May 194;. See also AACR, letter from Núñez to ‘A Group of Esteemed Gentleman That With Their Generosity have offered Pecuniary Help to the C. C. T. R. N.’, dated 14 Sep. 1946.

88 In 1950 CIT became the Organización Regional Interamericana de Trabajadores (ORIT). For discussions of AFL involvement in Latin America see Alba, Victor, Politics and the Labor Movement in Latin America (Stanford, 1968)Google Scholar; Alexander, Robert, Organised Labor in Latin America (New York, 1968)Google Scholar; Romualdi, Serafino, Presidents and Peons: Recollections of a Labor Ambassador in Latin America (New York, 1967)Google Scholar; and Ronald Radosh, American Labor and United States Foreign Policy. A far more critical view of AFL activities is found in Spalding, Hobart, Organised Labor in Latin America: Historical Case Studies of Workers in Dependent Societies (New York, 1977)Google Scholar.

89 Trabajo, 18 Oct. 1947, p. 1.

90 Trabajo, 24 Jan. 1948, p. 1.

91 Trabajo, 26 April 1947, p. 6.

92 AACR, letter from Sanabria to Salazar dated 20 Aug. 1947. on the other hand, Romualdi' assessment of Sanabria was unrestrained in its praise. After their first meeting in May 1947 he wrote, ‘He [Sanabria] certainly is a remarkable man with a broad and progressive social vision almost unequalled.’ Serafino Romualdi Papers, letter from Romualdi to Rev. Professor Luigi Sturzo dated 26 May 1947.

93 For some of the more notable studies on this period see notes 71 and 80, above.

94 For the history of the Legion see Ameringer, Charles, The Democratic Left in Exile (Miami, 1974)Google Scholar.

95 Mora, Discursos, pp. 323–35. Marshall was the stepson of Ricardo Steinvorth, a prominent coffee grower and businessman of German descent. Steinvorth's properties, as others of German descent, were confiscated by the Junta de Custodia de la Propiedad Enemiga. See also Ameringer, Don Pepe, pp. 45–53.

96 Hellman, Ronald G. and Blachman, Morris, ‘Costa Rica’, in Leogrande, William et al. (eds.), Confronting Revolution: Security Through Diplomacy in Central America (New York, 1986)Google Scholar.

97 In April, at the Organisation of American States Conference in Bogotá, the United States stated its disapproval of all communist participation in the governments of the hemisphere. For a discussion of how this affected Costa Rica see Schifter, Costa Rica 1948: Análisis. pp. 146–50.

98 AACR, letter from Mora to Sanabria dated 29 June 1948. Manuel Mora, interview by author, June 1990, Costa Rica, tape recording.

99 Figueres promised to turn the reins of government over to Ulate within eighteen months.

100 AACR, letter from Mora to Núñez dated 10 July 1948. Manuel Mora and Benjamín Nú˜ez, interviews by author, June 1990, Costa Rica, tape recording. The evidence is not on the side of Núñez. An agreement signed by him and Picado in the Archivo General de la Nación – Mexico clearly stipulated that amnesty would be granted to all Costa Rican citizens engaged in the conflict and that the Liberation Army would refrain from carrying out reprisals. Archivo General de la Nación – México, Document 577–1/56.

101 Decreto-Ley No. 105 of July 1948 declared communism illegal in Costa Rica. Article 1 specifically banned the PVP. This was not an isolated act. The Communist Party of Brazil was declared illegal in May 1947 and the Communist Party of Chile in September 1948. Bethell and Roxborough, ‘Latin America between the Second World War and the Cold War’, p. 177.

102 AACR, letter from Mora to Sanabria dated 28 June 1948. He was referring to the 10 percent tax on capital above $50,000 and the nationalisation of the banks.

103 Nú˜ez selected judicial over administrative dissolution, believing that administrative dissolution would set an unwelcome precedent for direct government intervention in labour unions. Benjamín Núñez and Luis Alberto Monge, interviews by author, June and May 1990, Costa Rica, tape recording.

104 The total number of dead during the conflict has been placed at 2,000. The most well-known site of death during the uprising and its aftermath was the Codo de Diablo along the rail line to Limon where PVP leaders were ambushed and killed. Those killed included: Tobías Vaglio, Lucío Ibarra, Octavio Sáenz and Federico Picado. The latter was a sitting deputy to Congress. Mora, Discursos, pp. 323–35.

105 Archivo Judicial de Costa Rica (AJCR), Disolución de CTCR y organizaciones afiliadas Junio 8, 1949. [Remesa 467; Estante 186; Archivo 416; Sección 5 ]. Subsequently this file will be referred to as AJCR, Disolución.

106 These were the 4 Oct. 1943 and 17–18 Feb. 1945 reports made by CTCR head, Rodolfo Guzmán to the Congress of the PVP; two reports made by Rodolfo Guzmán to CTAL, one on 9 Sep, 1946 and the other on 8 Dec. 1946; and a jo June 1946 report allegedly presented to the leadership of the PVP by Manuel Mora. AJCR, Disolución.

107 AJCR, Disolución, from Minister of Labour Núñez's denunciation, p. 4. The same passage was quoted in USNA, 818.504–506, dispatch dated 16 Sept. 1948. Mora did not ‘recognise’ the document as his though he admitted that he shared some of the ideas contained in it.

108 Three statements were entered into testimony by Oscar Sánchez Rodríguez, José Angel Mason, and Ovido Loáiciga, all members of the opposition and all involved in CTCR union activities. Of the three, the statement of Oscar Sánchez Rodriguez (quoted above) was the most interesting, not least because he became a lieutenant in Figueres's Liberation Army. AJCR, Disolución, pp. 71–7.

109 The invalidation was based on Article 594 of the Código de Procedimientos Penales.

110 For example, this was the case with the Guatemalan counter-revolution of 1954. Schlesinger, Stephen and Kinzer, Stephen, Bitter Fruit: The Untold Story of the American Coup in Guatemala (Garden City, 1981)Google Scholar and Gleijeses, Piero, Shattered Hope: The Guatemalan Revolution and the United States, 1944–19J4 (Princeton, 1991)Google Scholar.

111 This was unique for a Central American church at that time and can be viewed as an early precursor of the role the Latin American church would play beginning in the 1960s. However, its philosophic origins are distinct from those of Liberation Theology. See McCann, Dennis P., Christian Realism and Liberation Theology: Practical Theologies in Creative Conflict (New York, 1981)Google Scholar; and Maritain, Jacques, Integral Humanism: Temporal and Spiritual Problems of a New Christendom, trans. Evans, Joseph W. (Notre Dame, 1973)Google Scholar. On liberation theology see Gutiérrez, Gustavo, A Theology of Liberation, trans. Inda, Sister Caridad and Eagleson, John (New York, 1973)Google Scholar.