Bosch, Juan

Bosch, Juan (Juan Bosch Gavino) (hwän bōsh), 1909–2001, president of the Dominican Republic (Feb.–Sept., 1963). A teacher and writer, he spent 24 years in exile during the dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo and helped found (1939) the Dominican Revolutionary party. He returned (1961) to the Dominican Republic after the assassination of Trujillo and was elected president in the first free elections (Dec., 1962) held in 38 years. He introduced sweeping social and economic reforms but was ousted after seven months by military leaders who viewed him as too leftist. An attempt by his supporters to restore him to power in Apr., 1965, brought civil war and provoked armed intervention by U.S. troops. In 1966, Bosch was overwhelmingly defeated for the presidency by Joaquín Balaguer. After a voluntary exile in Europe, Bosch returned (1970) and joined the opposition to President Balaguer. In 1973 he founded the Dominican Liberation party, which he led until 1994. In 1978, 1982, 1986, 1990, and 1994 he again ran unsuccessfully for the presidency.

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Bosch (Gaviño), Juan

(born June 30, 1909, La Vega, Dom. Rep.—died Nov. 1, 2001, Santo Domingo) Scholar, poet, and president of the Dominican Republic (1963). Bosch was raised in a lower-middle-class family. Dismayed by the brutality of the dictator Rafael Trujillo, he spent 24 years in exile but returned after Trujillo's death to build a leftist anticommunist movement. After winning the first free presidential election in 38 years, he instituted liberal constitutional changes, many of which benefited the country's poor. His reforms, however, alienated landholders and industrialists, and after only seven months in office Bosch was ousted in a military coup. When his supporters revolted against the ruling junta in 1965, U.S. Pres. Lyndon B. Johnson, claiming that Bosch's followers were communists, sent troops to suppress the rebellion. Over the subsequent three decades, Bosch ran repeatedly but unsuccessfully for president.

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Bosch, Juan 

Born June 30, 1909, in La Vega. Dominican political and state figure; writer.

Bosch participated in the opposition movement against the Trujillo dictatorship. He was forced to emigrate in 1937. In 1939 he was one of the founders of the Dominican Revolutionary Party (PRD). He returned to the country in 1961 and was the PRD’s candidate for the presidency in 1962. Between February and September 1963 he was president of the Dominican Republic. His government carried out a number of measures infringing on the interests of US monopolies. In April 1963 the government adopted the first bourgeois-democratic constitution. Bosch’s activity evoked dissatisfaction among the imperialists of the USA and the forces of domestic reaction. He was removed as a result of a military coup (September 1963) and was in exile until 1965. In September 1965, during the upsurge of the patriotic movement in the country which took place under the banner of the restoration of the constitution of 1963, he returned to his homeland. In 1966 he was a candidate for the presidency, but under the conditions of the American occupation (from April 1965) of the Dominican Republic, he was defeated and emigrated once more. In 1970 he returned to the country.

Bosch is the author of a number of literary and journalistic works. Some have been translated into English, French, German, and Italian. His works in Russian translation are “The Rebel” and “The Holiday of Encarnación Mendoza” (Inostrannaia literatura, 1965, no. 11).

WORKS

The Unfinished Experiment: Democracy in the Dominican Republic. New York, 1965.
El Pentagonismo Sustituto del imperialismo. Madrid, 1968.
Cuentos escritos en el exilio. Santo Domingo, 1962.

V. D. NIKOLAENKO