Background
Haya de la Torre was born on February 3, 1895, in the northern Peruvian city of Trujillo.
Haya de la Torre was born on February 3, 1895, in the northern Peruvian city of Trujillo.
He studied literature at the Universidad Nacional de Trujillo. Then he enrolled in the National University of San Marcos in Lima.
As a student he organized night classes for workers and opposed the dictatorship of President Augusto Leguía, Leguia, who ruled from 1919 to 1930. When he was expelled from the country in 1922, Haya went to Mexico to study the Mexican Revolution and social reforms. After spending two years there he traveled to the Soviet Union, Germany, France, and Great Britain for further study of socialistic movements. Haya decided that the Russian system was not adaptable to Latin America and proceeded to work out another that recognized the necessity of private property and encouraged the spiritual work of the churches, but which aimed at the elimination of capitalistic abuses and of both economic and political imperialism. After President LeguíaLeguia was deposed in 1930, Haya returned to Peru and became the presidential candidate of the APRA (Alianza Popular Revolucionaria Americana, or American Popular Revolutionary Alliance), a new political organization that he and his colleagues had formed not only in Peru but in several other Latin-American countries. His candidacy was officially disallowed on allegedly unfair grounds, the APRA was banned, and many of its leaders had to flee the country. The movement went underground between 1932 and 1940, but after Manuel Prado became president he promised Haya and his followers political freedom. They achieved a victory when they helped elect Dr. JoséJose Luis Bustamante to the presidency on June 10, 1945. Rather than taken an official part in the new government, Haya retained his liberty of action and exerted strong influence as leader of APRA in behalf of political and social reform in Peru. The political alliance between Bustamante and Haya lasted only three years, however.
On October 2, 1948, a revolt led by Haya and his followers, with indications of Communist collaboration, broke out, and Peru was in a state of disorder for nearly a month.
On October 29 a military junta headed by General Manuel A. Odria deposed President Bustamante, assumed control of the government, and began a round-up of APRA leaders. Haya took refuge in the Colombian embassy at Lima, where he remained until April 1954, when he left Peru. In July 1956 President Manuel Prado y Ugarteche lifted the ban on Haya and APRA. Returning to Peru in 1957, Haya resumed leadership of APRA. He was the party's candidate for president in 1962. The election results were inconclusive, and the election was thrown into congress, where APRA was strongly represented. Fearing a Haya victory, the army seized power and in 1963 held a new election in which Haya lost. Thereafter his power declined.
Haya de la Torre founded Peruvian Aprista Party (APRA) with aspirations to becoming a continent-wide party, and it subsequently influenced a number of other Latin American political movements, including Bolivia's Revolutionary Nationalist Movement (Movimiento Nacionalista Revolucionario, MNR) and Costa Rica's National Liberation Party (Partido Liberación Nacional, PLN).
