Dominican Republic and Haiti: Country Studies

Dominican Republic and Haiti: Country Studies
est mountain in the Antilles, became Pico Trujillo) and a drive
to accumulate massive wealth.
Trujillo's regime quickly moved beyond the traditional
Dominican caudillo regimes of the nineteenth century. Bv the
end of his second term, it was evident that his regime's totalitarian
features went beyond those of Heureaux, its historical predecessor.
Occasionally partial liberalizations occurred in
response to international pressures. Such liberal episodes were
particularly evident in late 1937 and early 1938, following the
outcry that came after the October 1937 massacre of some
5,000 to 12,000 Haitians along the Dominican-Haitian border,
and in the immediate post-World War II era. But Trujillo's
accumulation of wealth and power would continue, reaching a
peak in 1955. The regime's deterioration began shortly thereafter,
accelerating in 1958.
Central to Trujillo's domination of the country was control
over an expanding armed forces and police, which were his
personal instrument rather than a national institution; the
armed forces and the police grew from around 2,200 in 1932 to
9,100 in 1948 to 18,000 in 1958. In the mid-1950s, Trujillo
transferred the best troops and weapons to a military service
known as Dominican Military Aviation, controlled by his son
Ramfis.
Yet, Trujillo's regime was not based purely on repression,
although over time it increasingly became so. Ideologically,
Trujillo portrayed himself with some success as a forger of the
Dominican nation, builder of the state, and defender of its economic
interests. His was the first prolonged period in the country's
history when the country was not directly attacked or
occupied by Spain, the United States, or Haiti. Trujillo built
upon the country's antipathy to Haiti to help articulate a
nationalist ideology appealing to traditional Hispanic and
Roman Catholic values, aided by intellectuals such as Joaquin
Balaguer Ricardo. In the 1930s, especially, he also articulated a
vision of discipline, work, peace, order, and progress. As these
values became embodied in a number of large-scale public
works and construction projects, and particularly as the economy
began moving out of the Great Depression of the late
1930s, Trujillo almost certainly gained respect among some elements
of the population. In some cases, he also gained support
because he presented himself in a messianic form. By the
1950s, and particularly after signing a concordat with the Vatican
in 1954, Trujillo often attacked "international commu-
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