The United States and Canada as Pure Democratic Virtue? vs. Latin American Countries as Pure Totalitarian Evil? Table of Contents: 1. Introduction 2. Global Confrontation in the Cold War 3. Undemocratic Western Democracy Bulwark 4. Positive Sides of Latin American Governments 5. Conclusion 1. Introduction The post-World War II time was characterized by the confrontation between so-called reactionary parties and governments and so-called parties of progress in so-called democratic and free countries. According to Canadian Minister of External Affairs, Louis St. Laurent, free nations realized the necessity to unite in the face of Communist threat (Keshen & Morton, 1998, p.252). This declamation goes very well with the general trend of the post World War II time, where the free nations label was assigned to the United States, Canada and Western European countries and the Communist threat – to the Soviet Union and its partner governments. Since my objective is to focus on the American continents, I will examine the level of democracy in the United States and Canada in contrast to the level of destructive and undemocratic trends in poorer Latin American countries. 2. Global Confrontation in the Cold War When the World War II was over the threats to the democratic norms and values did not cease but were declared as such that were acquiring new forms and were coming from the police regimes of the communist countries under the leadership of the Soviet Union. The free nations agreed on the necessity to combine their efforts and unite in order to not let the offensive regimes expend and to preserve peace in future. Canada’s position, presented by its Minister of External Affairs, along with the United States and other countries that initiated the United Nations and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was that: “totalitarian communist aggression constitutes a direct and immediate threat to every democratic country… It endangers our freedom and our peace. It puts in jeopardy the values and virtues of the civilization of western Christendom of which we are heirs and defenders” (Keshen & Morton, 1998, p.252). Interestingly enough, although the future confrontation was between the United States and the Soviet Union, one of the organizations, which was initiated by the US representatives, included both of these countries. The reason is that this initiative and the very term of United Nations were first mentioned on January 1, 1942 in the Declaration by United Nations. We see it was still the time of the World War II when representatives of 26 nations realized the necessity to unite their efforts in the common struggle against the possible powers that could threaten global peace. This initiative came into reality on October 24th, 1945 (Basic Facts about the United Nations, 2000). Another organization that was created with peace preservation in mind, but which was supposed to secure it in military ways was NATO. This alliance in contrast to the previous did not have Soviet Union among its members; it was on the contrary opposing it and all of its partner countries. This was actually the declared basis of NATO operations: to oppose the police regimes and to prevent the spread of their influence to democratic countries (Keshen & Morton, 1998, p.252). According to Laurent and all people of Canada, whom he said he was representing, the Treaty was initiated to guarantee rights and welfare for people in democratic countries and to rescue people that were already struggling from oppression of the regimes and thus bring them freedom and peace (Keshen & Morton, 1998, p.252-53). Thus we see that both the United States and Canada declared high concern with the welfare and civil rights of people in their own countries as well as of those who were under the oppression of the Communist totalitarian regimes. Nevertheless, their real attitudes were quite different from the declared ones and often rather doubtable. The evidence of which, I am going to present in the next section. 3. Undemocratic Western Democracy Bulwark Despite all the democratic declamations, both the United States and Canada, which was said to “follow the lead” (Keshen & Morton, 1998, p.252) of the United Kingdom and the US, failed to demonstrate their loyalty to democratic principles in reality. First of all, let us consider the ultimate purpose of the support that the United States was giving to the less-developed and economically struggling Latin American countries. George Kennan, the US State Department’s expert on Soviet Affairs, outlined the following items, which explained why the United States was interested in the Latin American region. The list he gave to the U.S. ambassadors in South America included three items: 1. Securing raw materials supplies from Latin America to the United States; 2. Prevention of military expansion of enemies to these territories; 3. Prevention of psychological opposition to the United States (LaFeber, 1993, p.109). Thus we see that the purposes were far from the declared fight in the name of peace and freedom for all people. Furthermore, the United States was interested not only in the fact of raw materials supply, but wanted to make sure that the supplies were as low priced as possible. Due to natural economic rules, huge spendings of the United States in the military sphere caused inflation and growth of prices, including the prices for products exported to the United States. The U.S. officials went against the principles of fair trade and market economy and demanded Latin American governments to control the currencies and prices by centralized autocratic methods in order to keep the prices for the U.S. low. The Southern American states rightfully refused the demand, which resulted in the United States tightening its military policies in relations to the region. Thus, the second evidence of the undemocratic attitudes of the U.S. lied in their plan of putting military, and thus political, control around Southern America. The U.S. Congress initiated the Military Defense Assistance Act (MDA), where the assistance to Latin American countries was proposed by a very high price. According to the act, the United States agreed to train, educate and finance military forces of the countries, but these forces could not be used later for global or regional operations. The forces could be used by the Latin American governments only for the internal security (LaFeber, 1993, p.109). Thus, obviously, this act would give the United States all the possibilities to acquire full information on military forces on the territories, to train the local military officers the way it would be required for the U.S. and to eliminate the capacity of the countries to make their impact on international affairs in opposition to the United States. Thirdly, there is evidence of the American officials speaking in favor of Latin American dictators as long as those acted to the favor of the U.S. The United Stated literally “counted on Latin American dictators to protect North American interests” (LaFeber, 1993, p.112). Corrupt dictators are always easier to talk into an affair that harms the nation as a whole but brings profits to those initiating the affair. Besides, the United States did not mind supporting Arbenz, even though he was previously suspected to be involved in murder of Arana, the strong political figure, which was known as a trustworthy reformist. The United States were interested in cheap raw materials and securely controlled territories on their border. The U.S. initiated program called Good Neighbor, which was declared to foster economic growth and provide basements for reform, but it ended in a source “of military ties and leverage” (LaFeber, 1993, p.112). Besides the interest in raw materials, the United States also wanted to have control over Cuba and its pro-communist leader by any price. This led the U.S. to support of Nicaragua's dictator, Somoza, and of the coup against apparently democratically elected Communist government in Chile (“Americas (Canada and Latin America),” 2005) Fourthly, the United States was far from democracy in their demands to fire seventeen officials from Guatemala’s government for their radical views (LaFeber, 1993, p.115). First of all, it was interruption to the internal affairs of another state and, secondly, this was the discrimination on the base of political affiliations, which is anything but not democracy. Fifthly, the United States took a very interesting double-faced position in relations to the birth control issue at home and in developing countries that could easily fall under the influence of Communists, such as the Latin American countries. The United States made every effort to raise birth rates among the American population starting from 30s and all the very to the mid 50s, when the position switched to promoting wise spacing of children with the help of contraceptives. Even when the contraceptives were advertised in the United States, they were presented with the purpose of better family planning, and nobody spoke against having many children, if an American family wanted to. The U.S. policy on the matter was very different in relation to the population of developing countries. The United States was so concerned with undeveloped countries falling under the influence of the Soviet Union, that they saw such threat even in the number of children people had in those countries: “political stability depended on rapid economic development and that development in turn could only succeed if the rate of population growth did not eat up the capital needed to finance development” (May,1990, p.419). Consequently, in order to prevent high birth rates in these problematic countries, the U.S. scared people with declamations that soon there would be so many people, that it would cause hunger, turmoil and “communists [will] seek to conquer the earth” (May, 1990, p.419). It might sound like nonsense to educated people, but it could scare little educated people of Latin America. Finally, the evidence that puts Canada, the country that supported the United States in many of its decisions and unfortunately did so in relations to the actions, which brought communist threat fight to the extreme that humiliated people and abused civil rights of Canadians. The labour legislation that Quebec once proposed contained articles that refused people, who sympathized communists and those who were in relation to the first ones, in their work-related constitutional rights (Keshen & Morton, 1998, p.258-9). Thus, we see that North American declared democracy was in many ways similar to that autocratic, oppressive, dual-faced, corrupt and human rights neglecting governing that communist countries had. 4. Positive Sides of Latin American Governments Of course, there is no sense in arguing that the dictatorship regimes of the post World War II Latin American countries were democratic. Indeed by mid 50s thirteen out of twenty Latin American countries were ruled by military dictators (LaFeber, 1993, p.109). Indeed, governments of El Salvador, Guatemala, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Peru, Mexico, Uruguay, Haiti and Honduras hold numerous violations against their people, who opposed the governments. (Blum, 2005) Nevertheless, there were some moments that demonstrated true eagerness of some of its leaders to introduce reforms, which would be aimed at economic growth and political stability. Thus, Jorge Ubico, besides practicing totalitarian rule, made some positive economic and social changes, such as development of infrastructure, building of roads, support of middle class growth and mobilization of some Indians and encouraging them to more active political involvement(LaFeber, 1993, p.11). There was also the whole new generation of liberals in Guatemala that initiated movement that finally grew into revolution. These people were raised on democratic principles, gained from Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms. The liberalistic movement was not limited to Guatemala solemnly, it was present in most of the dictatorship-oppressed countries. Another leader that brought positive changes to his country was Juan Jose Arevalo, the president of Guatemala elected in late 1944. He was determined to restructure Guatemalan society having its best interests in mind. He launched reforms that helped poor population, he supported development of employment rights securities, by initiating social security system, labor code, which allowed strikes, professional unions, etc. Unfortunately, the good reformist ideas of Arevalo could not be fully brought to life, as he lacked a good team and a good structure and plan of work. 5.Conclusion Thus, we have seen through the list of the evidence that the confrontation between the so-declared democratic Northern American states, the U.S. and Canada, and the poor and totalitarian and potentially pro-communist countries of Latin America cannot be described as such that took place between purely democratic United States and evil dictatorship Southern American countries. Of course, the evidence against the U.S. democracy is bigger than that against Latin America’s negative attitudes and dictatorship. Nevertheless, even the evidence mentioned gives us the grounds to claim that nothing is black and white. Neither the United States and Canada are purely democratic, nor the Latin American countries are pure totalitarian evil. Bibliography 1. “Americas (Canada and Latin America).” (2005) New Batch. Available at: (28 March 2005). 2. Blum, W. (2005). “US, Cuba and Democracy.” Global Politician. March 13, 2005. Available at: (28 March 2005) 3. Keshen, J., & Morton, S., eds. (1998). Material Memory: Documents in Post-Confederation History. Don Mills, Ontario: Addison-Wesley, 251-262. 4. LaFeber, W. (1993). Inevitable Revolutions: The United States in Central America. New York: Norton, 108-27. 5. May, E.T. (1990). The Reproductive Consensus of the Postwar Era. In Norton M.B. & Alexander R.M., ed., Major Problems in American Women’s History. Lexington MA: D.C. Health, 515-20.