Víctor Raúl Haya de la Torre: Encyclopedia II - Víctor Raúl Haya de la Torre - Ideas

Víctor Raúl Haya de la Torre - Ideas

Haya de la Torre advocated a system of Latin American (or, to use his preferred term, Indo-American) solutions to Latin American problems. He called upon the region to reject both US imperialism and Soviet communism. He favored universal democracy, equal rights and respect for indigenous populations, and socialist economic policies such as agrarian reform, based on the concept of communal land ownership, and state control of industry.

Haya de la Torre advocated the overthrow of the land-owning oligarchies that had ruled Peru since colonial days, replacing them with an idealistic socialist elite. However, in exchange for attaining legal status for the party, he made opportunistic ideological swings to the right, and by the 1950s it had jettisoned most of its progressive, socialist ideals. In addition, Haya de la Torre's single-handed dominance APRA resulted in pronounced sectarian and hierarchical traits, resulted in an exodus of some of APRA's most talented young leaders to the Marxist left.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Ideas", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki