Guatemalan Revolution

1944-10-01 - 1954-06-01

Period in Guatemala's history between the 1944 ouster of dictator Jorge Ubico and the 1954 coup against Jacobo Arbenz, locally known as the Revolution or the Ten Years of Spring, the peak years of representative democracy. Presidents Juan Jose Arevalo and Jacobo Arbenz implemented social, political and agrarian reforms, notably Arbenz's Decree 900 land reform, under which uncultivated portions of large holdings were expropriated and redistributed to some 500,000 people. The era ended when the US State Department engineered Arbenz's overthrow over United Fruit Company interests, installing Carlos Castillo Armas and precipitating the civil war.