Journey to Indo-América: APRA and the Transnational Politics of Exile, Persecution, and Solidarity, 1918–1945

Abstract

Journey to Indo-América demonstrates the centrality of transnational exile networks for understanding the evolution of the American Popular Revolutionary Alliance (APRA) and its political struggles in Peru over the course of the party's first two decades of existence. During most of this period APRA could not operate legally in Peru, and hence the far-flung network of exiled Apristas who developed a continental consciousness. Using archives that had not been much consulted, Geneviève Dorais traces these networks and details how the experience of exile for Víctor Raúl Haya de la Torre and other Apristas shaped their conception of Indo-America and helped to support the party's efforts to gain power in Peru.Even before APRA's founding in 1926, transnational connections influenced the thinking of Haya de la Torre and other future Apristas. While APRA's roots in the university reform movement that began in 1918 have been well established, its connections to networks of progressive Christian and pacifist intellectuals in the United States have received less attention. Dorais dedicates a whole chapter to these connections that began in Peru and centered on two key figures: John Mackay, a Scottish Presbyterian pastor who founded the Colegio Anglo-Peruano in Lima, and the Christian pacifist and activist Anna Melissa Graves, who developed a strong friendship with Haya de la Torre. Both Mackay and Graves were attracted to expressions of hemispheric identity and solidarity, which they saw as signs of a necessary spiritual regeneration in the West.Dorais highlights the tensions within these transnational networks in which Apristas and non-Apristas had different goals. Mackay and Graves pursued their own agendas in promoting Haya de la Torre as a kind of spiritual leader for Latin America. Yet they were less accepting of the nationalism of Apristas who sought to address Peru's specific problems of social injustice. While Haya de la Torre initially relied on them for both emotional and financial support (particularly in the case of Graves), he gradually broke ties as he developed new connections in Mexico, the Soviet Union, and Europe, and after APRA became a national party in Peru.Among the most convincing aspects of Dorais's analysis is the link she establishes between the experience of exile and APRA's ideological shift away from its early anti-imperialism. While this shift has usually been attributed to Haya de la Torre's response to changing world events, including Franklin D. Roosevelt's Good Neighbor Policy, Dorais offers a more sociological interpretation. Deprived of political rights in Peru, where APRA remained proscribed, exiled Apristas embraced the notion of a continental identity (Indo-America) that included democratic rights. Their position thus aligned them more closely with the United States at a time when communism and fascism were growing forces on the world scene. Ideology and praxis were interwoven as exiles “used Indo-América as a way to universalize their demands in the context of local repression” (p. 186).Dorais also argues that the Aprista transnational networks remained central to the party's political struggles inside Peru during the long period of political persecution that stretched, with a few interruptions, from 1932 to 1945. For example, immediately following APRA's establishment in Peru in 1930, Apristas returning from exile relied on their experience abroad as a source of authority and legitimacy vis-à-vis party leaders in Peru. The broad international campaign to free Haya de la Torre from jail during the year 1932 further strengthened those Apristas with transnational connections and bolstered the “Hayista faction” within the party.The degree to which these Aprista transnational networks remained instrumental in sustaining the party in Peru during the long period of persecution known as the catacombs (1933–39) is more open to debate. There is no doubt that the continued efforts of exiled Apristas to write political propaganda influenced international opinion, created sympathy for APRA by criticizing the dictatorial government of Oscar Benavides, and reinforced the narrative of APRA as a party with strong popular support. In some cases, foreign Christian “intermediaries” inside Peru also helped to circulate propaganda at a time of persecution. Yet networks of Apristas throughout Peru lacking transnational connections continued to engage in struggles of their own to keep the party alive. In fact, an Aprista counternarrative about exile emerged in Peru in which exiles were portrayed as leading an easy life far from the realities of political persecution or, to use the words of Haya de la Torre, a life of “sensualization.”Dorais's book is a welcome addition to the most recent scholarship on APRA's transnational dimension. The author convincingly argues that we must take seriously the experience of exile to understand the history of APRA and has modeled an effective methodology for doing so. Hopefully this work will inspire others to pursue similar lines of research to further uncover the intricacies of the transnational networks that stretched throughout the Americas during these crucial decades in world politics.