People's Republic of Central America
History
The People's Republic of Central America was a socialist state in Central America and the Caribbean that existed from 1962 to 1975. A union of multiple subnational republics, its government and economy were highly centralized. The PRCA was a one-party federation, governed by the Communist Party with Managua as its capital.
The PRCA had its roots in the Cuban Revolution that took place from 1953 to 1959, when the communists, led by Fidel Castro, overthrew the authoritarian government of President Fulgencio Batista. They established the Republic of Cuba with the Soviet Union as its main supporter, this event combined with the new governments support and extensive military from the Soviets through Cuba lead other communists’ groups in Central American countries to overthrow their governments beginning a civil war between the communists and loyalists. Nicaragua's fall to communism in 1960 gave the Cuban's a way of putting troops in Central America enabling them to accelerate the "Revolutionary" process. The Cuban forces entered several territories in Central America through Nicaragua and helped local Communists take power. In 1962, the Communists were victorious, forming the PRCA with the unification of the Cuba, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Honduras, Belize and Haiti.
Following the formation of the PRCA, a troika and a brief power struggle, Fidel Castro came to power in the 1964. Castro suppressed all political opposition to his rule, committed the state ideology to Marxism–Leninism, and initiated a centrally planned command economy. As a result, the country underwent a period of rapid industrialization and collectivization. Castro also fomented political paranoia, and conducted a Great Purge to remove opponents of his from the Communist Party through the mass arbitrary arrest of many people (military leaders, Communist Party members, and ordinary citizens alike) who were then sent to correctional labour camps or sentenced to death.
Critics of Castro's regime asserted that Castro's administration imposed strict controls over everyday life, and believed that his political campaigns contributed to or caused thousands of deaths, incurred severe economic costs, and damaged the PRCA's cultural heritage. This lead Castro in 1967 to implement a series of economic reforms and policies that began with the de-collectivization of the countryside, followed with industrial reforms aimed at decentralizing government controls in the industrial sector.
Although standards of living had improved significantly in the late 1960s, Castro's reforms were not without criticism. Hard-liners asserted that Castro opened the PRCA once again to various social evils, and an overall increase in materialistic thinking, while liberals attacked Castro's unrelenting stance on political reform. Liberal forces began gathering in different forms to protest the Party's authoritarian leadership. In 1969, the imprisonment of several liberal figures, triggered weeks of spontaneous protests in Managua. The government imposed martial law and sent in tanks and soldiers to suppress the demonstrations. Western countries and multilateral organizations briefly suspended their formal ties with the PRCA's government under Castro's leadership, which was directly responsible for the military curfew and bloody crackdown.
Castro’s response to the protests had not only damaged his position on the international scene but also internally, for some time a group of nationalists officers within the different branches of the armed had become increasingly alienated by what they saw as the Cuban colonization of their countries disguised as a working together policy, the increasing tension between the leadership and the army combined with the rising liberal sectors of the population made the situation more complicated for the leadership which became more authoritarian as the years passed.
The tension finally culminating in the civil uprising of May 1975 supported by the Nationalist wing of the armed forces which succeeded in forcing Castro to flee to Cuba and taking control of the PRCA. The army quickly setup a mixed interim government composed of high ranking officers and civilians to re-establish order in the country and to decide what would be the next step. By October 1975 it had become obvious that maintaining the Union would extremely difficult due to the differences between the member nations and as a result it was decided to dissolve the PRCA, bringing an end to thirteen years of communist rule in Central America.
Military
The People's Revolutionary Army (PRA) were the armed forces of the People's Republic of Central America. The PRA consisted of five professional service branches: Ground Forces, Navy, Air Force, Civil guard and the Strategic Support Force.
The PRA was under the command of the Central Military Commission (CMC) of the Communist Party. Following the principle of civilian control of the military, the commander in chief was the Chairman of the Central Military Commission (usually the General Secretary of the Communist Party of China as well as Paramount leader). The Ministry of National Defense, which operated under the State Council, did not exercise any authority over the PRA and was far less powerful than the CMC. A system of political officers was embedded within the military to ensure party authority over the armed forces so that the primary role of the Ministry of Defense was that of a liaison office with foreign militaries rather than a commanding authority. The political and military leadership made a concerted effort to create a professional military force, the duties of which were restricted to national defence and to the provision of assistance in domestic economic construction and emergency relief. This conception of the role of the PRA required the promotion of specialised officers who could understand modern weaponry and handle combined arms operations. In times of national emergency, the People's National Police and the National Militia acted as a reserve and supported element for the Ground Forces.
The People's Revolutionary Army was founded on 12 August 1962 after the communist victory and the formation of the PRCA. The new leaders recognized the need to transform the PRA, essentially an infantry army with limited mobility, logistics, ordnance, and communications, into a modern military force. The signing of the Treaty of Friendship, Alliance, and Mutual Assistance in February 1963 with the Soviet Union provided the framework for defense modernization in the 1960s.
Large-scale Soviet aid in modernizing the PRA, which began in the fall of 1963, took the form of weapons and equipment, assistance in building PRCA's defense industry, and the loan of advisers, primarily technical ones. The Soviet Union supplied infantry weapons, artillery, armor, trucks, fighter aircraft, bombers, submarines, destroyers, and gunboats. Soviet advisers assisted primarily in developing a defense industry set up along Soviet organizational lines. Aircraft and ordnance factories and shipbuilding facilities were constructed and by the late 1960s were producing a wide variety of Soviet-design military equipment. Following dissolution of the PRCA, the People's Revolutionary Army dissolved and the PRCA's successor states shared out its assets among themselves. The share out mostly occurred on a regional basis, with PRA soldiers from Cuba becoming part of the new Cuban Army, while soldiers originating from other regions became part of the new Armies of their