What factors prevented many Latin American countries from forming stable democracies?
Latin America started off behind the eight ball because they were originally Spanish colonies (Brazil was Portuguese). These nations were more stratified culturally than Britain and France. The landed class or nobility controlled every aspect of life. This carried on into the new world. Peasants had not rights and were treated even worse if they mixed with Indians or Black slaves. At no time was there a real democracy in South and Central America. When Communism came into fashion in the 20th Century it became populare among many of the peasants in these lands because they saw the only way out from under their oppressive masters was revolution. The US, in an attempt to stifle the growth of communism, supported the conservative classes – the Rich, the Military and the Church – in their attempts to keep the revolutionaries from succeeding.
