Response Paper #3 from Lisa M. Beck Module – The Americas Tuesday, October 21, 2014

Of the 40 pages we were instructed to read from Empire’s Workshop, by far, the most interesting section

to me was the one titled, “Not Hearts and Minds but Stomachs and Livers.” If that isn’t a subtitle to catch

your attention, I don’t know what would. It is a short section – less than four pages long – but in it, the

author describes two revolutions in Latin America, one on the heels of the other, but with dramatically

different outcomes. One was favorable to the U.S. and the other victorious against it (Empire’s Workshop,

pp. 42-45). If you haven’t guessed already, the section discusses the overthrow of Guatemalan president

Jacobo Arbenz and the attempt to collapse the regime of Cuban president Fidel Castro.

Details on Arbenz and Castro are also found in The Global Cold War by Odd Arne Westad, but for brevity’s

sake, this response will only focus on Arbenz. The section on Arbenz provides a good theoretical, political

backdrop to what is written in Empire’s Workshop. In The Global Cold War, Westad writes:

Since the removal of the US-supported dictator Ubico in 1844, Guatemala had been a thorn in

Washington’s side…. Most important of all to Washington, the Guatemalan government legalized

the Communist Party and allowed it to operate freely throughout the country.

p. 146

Arbenz had the best of intentions despite U.S. objections to communism and as history played itself out,

we will never know if his good intentions would have unfolded for the people of Guatemala.

Nevertheless, as Westad writes, “… the Soviet elite firmly believed that socialism would replace

capitalism as the main international system within a generation” (The Global Cold War, p. 72). Perhaps

it was this ideology that was of concern to some in the U.S., especially those who viewed capitalism as

the centerpiece of U.S. foreign policy. To them, destroying any roots of communism that might be

gaining ground in Latin America was not only warranted for the continuing security of capitalism; it was

vital to the “most generous and tolerant taskmaster” Latin America had ever known (The Global Cold

War, p. 148).