Arévalo, Juan José

Arévalo (Bermejo), Juan José

(born Sept. 10, 1904, Taxisco, Guat.—died Oct. 6, 1990, Guatemala City) President of Guatemala (1945–51). Soon after earning his doctorate, he went to Argentina, where he held various academic positions. After the overthrow of the Guatemalan dictator Jorge Ubico, he was elected president, receiving 85 percent of the vote. He established freedom of speech and of the press, and his administration inaugurated a social security system, a labour code, and important education and health programs. His policies favoured urban and agricultural workers and the indigenous population. He stepped down voluntarily at the end of his term. A military coup prevented him from running again in 1963.

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Arévalo, Juan José 

Born Sept. 10, 1904. Guatemalan social and political figure and writer. Doctor of philosophy and pedagogical science.

During Ubico’s dictatorship (1931–44), Arévalo was exiled from the country. In 1945 he returned to Guatemala and was elected president (1945–51). As a bourgeois democrat and reformer, Arévalo put into effect a number of socioeconomic changes, established diplomatic relations with the USSR (1945), and took part in working out the Constitution of 1945, which introduced fundamental bourgeois democratic freedoms.

Arévalo is an ideologist of the petite bourgeoisie. His philosophical views received their fullest reflection in his book The Pedagogics of Personality. Arévalo is also the author of belles-lettres and publicistic works. Since 1954 he has been living in exile in Mexico.

WORKS

Guatemala la democracia y el imperio, 2nd ed. Mexico City, 1954.
Fábula del tiburón y las sardinas, 5th ed. Buenos Aires, 1959. (Contains a bibliography.)