caa a22 4500 386355789 CHVBK 20180307111852.0 cr unu---uuuuu 161130e198910 xx s 000 0 eng 10.1017/S0022216X00018514 doi S0022216X00018514 pii (NATIONALLICENCE)cambridge-10.1017/S0022216X00018514 Gleijeses Piero Piero Gleijeses is Associate Professor of American Foreign Policy and Latin American Studies at Johns Hopkins University, Washington. The Agrarian Reform of Jacobo Arbenz [Elektronische Daten] [Piero Gleijeses] The cry for land is, without any doubt, the loudest, the most dramatic and the most desperate sound in Guatemala.' So wrote the Guatemalan bishops in 1988. In their country's long history, the bishops stated, only one president - Jacobo Arbenz - had addressed the issue of land reform.1 Inaugurated in 1951, Arbenz presided over the most successful agrarian reform in the history of Central America. The reports of the US embassy bear testimony to the fact that within eighteen months land was distributed to 100,000 peasant families, amid little violence and without adversely affecting production.2 Praise for initiating the reform does not belong, however, solely to Arbenz. As his wife observed, ‘Alone, he could not have done it'. Praise should also be given to the Communist party of Guatemala, whose leaders were Arbenz's closest personal and political friends.3 Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1989 Journal of Latin American Studies Cambridge University Press 21/3(1989-10), 453-480 0022-216X 21:3<453 1989 21 LAS https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022216X00018514 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI 1 research-article jats NATIONALLICENCE 856 40 https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022216X00018514 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI NATIONALLICENCE 100 1- Gleijeses Piero Piero Gleijeses is Associate Professor of American Foreign Policy and Latin American Studies at Johns Hopkins University, Washington NATIONALLICENCE 773 0- Journal of Latin American Studies Cambridge University Press 21/3(1989-10), 453-480 0022-216X 21:3<453 1989 21 LAS CC0 http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0 nationallicence BK010053 XK010053 XK010000 NATIONALLICENCE NATIONALLICENCE NL-cambridge