Jacobo Árbenz

Who was Jacobo Árbenz?

Colonel Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán was a Guatemalan military officer and progressive politician who served as Defense Minister of Guatemala from 1944 to 1951, and as President of Guatemala from 1951 to 1954.

Árbenz was born in 1913 to a middle-class family, and graduated with high honors from a military academy in 1935. He served in the army corp until 1944, steadily rising through the ranks. During this period, he witnessed the American backed dictator Jorge Ubico use the military to brutally suppress agrarian laborers. As an officer in the army, Árbenz himself was required to escort chain-gangs of prisoners. This process greatly radicalized him, and he began to form links to the labor movement. In 1938 he met and married his wife María Vilanova, who was also a great ideological influence on him.

In 1944, Ubico's highly repressive policies resulted in a popular revolt against him, led by students and progressive factions within the military, including Árbenz. In the elections that followed, widely seen as free and fair, Juan José Arévalo was elected president with 85% of the vote.