Víctor Raúl Haya de la Torre (February 22, 1895 – August 2, 1979) was a Peruvian politician, philosopher, and author who founded the American Popular Revolutionary Alliance (APRA) political movement, the oldest currently existing political party in Peru by the name of the Peruvian Aprista Party (PAP).
Born to an aristocratic family in Trujillo, a city on the north Peruvian coast, he enrolled in the National University of Trujillo and then the School of Law of the National University of San Marcos. He soon stood out as a student leader supporting the working class. He participated in protests against the regime of Augusto B. Leguía, standing out as a vigorous and eloquent speaker, with great power of persuasion due to the depth of his ideas. Banished by Leguía in 1922, he emigrated to Mexico, where in 1924 he founded the APRA, a political movement with continental projection and a social democratic orientation, initially with a clear anti-imperialist position.
Returning to Peru in 1930 after a European and Latin American tour, he established the APRA party in Peru, the Peruvian Aprista Party, on whose political scene he would remain active from then until his death. He suffered imprisonment, exiles and political asylum. He ran for the presidency in the 1931 elections, losing to Luis Miguel Sánchez Cerro. Imprisoned in 1932 by the Sánchez Cerro administration, he was released in 1933, only to be persecuted again, already under the government of Óscar R. Benavides. He remained in hiding until 1945, when his party returned to legality; he supported the National Democratic Front, which elevated José Luis Bustamante y Rivero to the presidency. In 1948, his party was again banned and after the coup d'état by general Manuel A. Odría he was forced to take refuge in the Colombian embassy (1948–1954). In 1956, he contributed to the electoral victory of Manuel Prado Ugarteche, initiating the so-called "coexistence". Once again as presidential nominee, he placed first in the 1962 election, but the Armed Forces issued a veto against him, prompting a military coup that overthrew Prado and prevented his bidding to seal his victory in Congress in favor of Odría.
During the Armed Forces Revolutionary Government, he assembled and instructed a new generation of party leaders, which included his successor and future president of Peru, Alan García. He was overwhelmingly elected to the Constituent Assembly, being elected as the body's president, and leading the drafting of a new Peruvian constitution, which he would sign in his deathbed in July 1979. He died on August 2, 1979, and his remains rest in his hometown of Trujillo. He remains one of the most influential political thinkers in Peruvian history. His legacy is considered fundamental in Peruvian historiography, with his ideology coined as revolutionary by historians.
Early life and education
Víctor Raúl Haya de la Torre was born in the northern Peruvian city of Trujillo on February 22, 1895. He was the son of Raúl Edmundo Haya y de Cárdenas, also from Trujillo, and Zoila Victoria de la Torre y de Cárdenas, who were also cousins. His birth is commemorated as Fraternity Day every February 22 by the Peruvian Aprista Party.
Haya studied his primary and secondary education at the Seminary of San Carlos School and San Marcelo School of Trujillo. In 1913, he enrolled in the National University of Trujillo to study literature, where he met and forged a solid friendship with the Peruvian poet César Vallejo. Both, along with other students and under the leadership of Antenor Orrego and José Eulogio Garrido, integrated the so-called "Trujillo bohemia", where he was known as "The Prince of Misfortune" among his classmates. This intellectual group was later baptized as the North Group.
Subsequently, he continued his undergraduate education at the National University of San Marcos in Lima, where he pursued a law degree. In 1917, he was introduced to politician and writer Manuel González Prada, whom is cited as his main influence in the capital, developing political concerns derived from the radicalism of said intellectual. In 1918, he was one of those who carried his coffin. Historians have debated over the fact that González Prada is the precursor of Aprismo.
Student leader (1919–1923) In January 1919, he joined the college commission that supported the workers' struggle for the establishment of the eight-hour labor reform. Contrary to popular belief, Haya de la Torre did not assume a leading role in the development of the strike, but rather played a small role as a student leader. This episode marked the beginning of Haya's active participation in Peruvian politics. In October of that same year, he was elected president of the Peruvian Student Federation. He was linked with all sectors of society. He led movements in favor of university reform in Peru and labor organizations. He participated in the first National Student Congress, held in Cusco (March 1920), where the project to create the "popular universities" was approved, which in 1922 took shape under the name of "González Prada", night schools for workers, which according to some historians formed the foundation for his party. He was instrumental in bringing the ideas of the Argentine University Reform movement (La Reforma) to San Marcos, and administrative reforms were instituted in 1919. Part of the reform movement was university extension programs, through which the university students hoped to reach the working classes.
He launched numerous protests against the government of Augusto B. Leguía when, around 1923, began to plot his perpetuation in power (this regime would later be known as the Eleven-Year Rule). One of the most significant of these protests was the opposition campaign to the projected official consecration of the country to the Sacred Heart order, promoted by the Archbishop of Lima, Emilio Lisson, to legitimize the dictatorial regime. During the street protest, a student and a worker died (May 23, 1923), which became a symbol of student-worker unity. The consecration ceremony was finally suspended by the archbishop.Sánchez, 1985, pp.101–117. Later, Haya led the radical student-worker magazine Claridad, in collaboration with José Carlos Mariátegui, as "organ of the free youth of Peru" and of the popular universities.Tauro del Pino, 2001, tomo 8, p.1145.
Haya also taught at the Colegio Anglo-Peruano (now Colegio San Andres), a school operated by the Free Church of Scotland in Lima. He was deeply influenced by the headmaster of the school, John A. Mackay, a Free Church missionary.John Mackay Metzger, The Hand and the Road: The Life and Times of John A. Mackay (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 121–122 In October 1923, he was arrested and detained in the El Frontón prison, where he went on a hunger strike; six days after the strike, he was shipped in the small steam train Negada and deported to Panama.Sánchez, 1985, p.117.
Exile; Foundation of the APRA
In Panama, Haya stayed for two weeks, before heading to Cuba. From there he went to Mexico, invited by José Vasconcelos, then Secretary of Public Education, to collaborate as his secretary. He arrived in Mexico City on November 16, 1923. He then made contact with the Mexican Revolution, appreciating the socio-economic changes that took place in that country.Sánchez, 1985, p.123-125.
He contacted Mexican students to encourage them to develop a continental student and labor fraternity. It was precisely in Mexico City that, on May 7, 1924, he founded the American Popular Revolutionary Alliance. As it can be deduced from its name, Haya de la Torre's initial political option sought to consolidate itself into a project for Latin America, as a pan-Latin American movement.
In a simple ceremony, he presented the students of Mexico with the flag of Indoamerica, on which occasion he said: «This flag that I give you will first fly over the dreamy crowds of the youth that are opening the way, and later they will be the people who shake it in the shuddering tumult of their struggles ». Its doctrinal foundations were presented two years later, in the manifesto entitled What is the APRA?. Initially published in English in the Labour Monthly magazine in London, in December 1926, and later translated into Spanish and reproduced in various Latin American publications. In this document, it exposes the five basic points of the Aprista doctrine:
In September 1924 he traveled to Russia, where he made contact with the Russian Revolution, which served as a source of inspiration for his ideology. He also traveled through Switzerland, Italy and France. In 1925, he settled in England, where, between 1926 and 1927, he studied economics at the London School of Economics and then anthropology at the University of Oxford, where he would later become a professor (in 1964).
Haya devoted himself entirely to forming a great movement that could represent the excluded masses of "Indoamerica". The APRA had its first committee in Paris (founded on January 22, 1927), followed in Buenos Aires, Mexico City, and La Paz. The APRA was born as an eminently anti-oligarchic and anti-imperialist force. It was early linked to Marxism but clearly disagreed with communism, as it considered it a totalitarian political system. In 1927, he published his first book, entitled For the Emancipation of Latin America, where he exposed the Aprista doctrine. In May 1928, he finished writing his book The anti-imperialism and APRA, a work that for economic reasons would not come to light until 1935.
In February 1927, he participated in the First Anti-imperialist Congress in Brussels, in which he raised the difference between APRA and communism. In November of that year he left Europe and returned to America, passing through New York City before returning to Mexico. He then undertook a tour of Guatemala, El Salvador, Costa Rica and, again, Panama, being prevented from landing in the Canal Zone and, rather, was exiled again to Europe on December 16, 1928. He spent some time in Berlin and in other cities until June 1931. In the meantime, the government of Leguía was overthrown by the Peruvian Army led by Luis Miguel Sánchez Cerro on August 25, 1930. Haya returned to Peru and founded the Peruvian Aprista Party (PAP) on September 20, 1930.
1931 presidential election
After having lived in exile as a consequence of his fight against the Leguía administration, Haya de la Torre returned to Peru, having been nominated as presidential candidate for the 1931 general election with the newly founded Peruvian Aprista Party. He first arrived in Talara (July 12, 1931), and was received in his hometown (July 25), and finally entered Lima (August 15), where before a huge crowd gathered in Plaza de Acho, he exposed the party's program, in which he emphasized state intervention in the economy (August 23). The APRA campaign introduced means never before seen in the elections in Peru: street graffiti in all the cities of the country; candidates called by name – "Víctor Raúl", "Luis Alberto", etc.—; inclusion of non-voters —JAP (Aprista Youth), CHAP (Aprista Boys) -; own hymn, which superimposed the lyrics to the music of the French Marseillaise – the Aprista Marseillaise; a flag for the party identifying the supporters; supporters called "companions" holding up white scarves, and the famous "SEASAP" ("Only APRA will save Peru"). A kind of cult figure of Haya began in the party, who was at the same time Víctor Raúl, the boss, the guide and the master.
According to the Electoral Jury that directed this election, Haya placed second with 35% of the popular vote, behind Luis Miguel Sánchez Cerro (Revolutionary Union); however, Haya and the APRA as a whole never recognized the official results or the new government.
Presidency of Luis Miguel Sánchez Cerro and the Great Clandestinity (1931–1945)