ABSTRACT
Seventy years of Liberalism had deepened mono-export underdevelopment in Guatemala and had left the nation in a crisis of stagnation. During World War II, the United States enforced the liquidation of the sizeable German economic interests and interned German Guatemalans in US camps. The US government and private US investors became concerned over the increasing radicalization of the Revolution under Arbenz. The Revolution was directed primarily by nationalist sectors of the bourgeoisie and petty bourgeoisie, but they had forged an alliance with significant sectors of the working class and peasantry. Particularly after the 1952 land reform, workers and peasants became more important in this alliance, and their level of mobilization and organization increased greatly. In land invasions, for example, the peasants began to take initiatives without waiting for government permission. The day after the invasion, Guatemala lodged a formal protest against Honduran and Nicaraguan aggression to the UN Security Council.
