cottage industry presented an alternative to work on the haciendas and created a middle class that challenged traditional agrarian elites (Maiguashca 1991, 84–85).
During the 1930s and 1940s, Ecuador had seen dramatic urbanization processes. Guayaquil’s population grew from 58,000 in 1896 to 100,000 in 1920 and doubled again by 1944, when the city had 200,000 residents (Rojas and Villavicencio 1988). Although less impressively than in Guayaquil, Quito’s population also grew in this period. It went from 51,858 in 1906 to 120,000 in 1933 and to 138,906 in 1942 (Dirección Nacional de Estadísticas 1944). The increase in urban population, however, did not mean proletarianization. In spite of very modest processes of import substitution industrialization, in both cities there were fewer blue-collar workers than artisans, and most people were marginally employed as servants, day laborers, and street vendors. These modernization processes and the growth of the state meant that white-collar workers represented 14 to 25 percent of the employed population.5
The changes in the social relations of production that resulted in a crisis of paternalistic authority in some parts of the countryside (Maiguashca 1991), and the increasing urbanization of the country coincided with the growth of popular organizations in civil society. Although only 42 organizations were established between 1925 and 1930,191 were founded between 1931 and 1940, and 682 in the 1940s (Maiguashca and North 1991,106). By the 1940s, the labor movement had been transformed by the establishment of two national federations: the Catholic Confederación Ecuatoriana de Obreros Católicos (CEDOC) in 1938 and, in 1944, the Communist and Socialist Confederación de Trabajadores del Ecuador (CTE). The middle classes also became organized. Whereas before 1930 only two office em ployees’ associations existed, twenty-one were formed between 1931 and 1940, and sixty-eight between 1941 and 1950 (Maiguashca and North 1991,106).
All the above issues—the belief that the government was going to commit electoral fraud, the defeat by Peru, the carabineros’ arrogance and brutality, and the government’s failure to stop inflation—were expressed in messianic terms of the immediate need to save the nation.
“Ecuador is experiencing the most serious moments of its history, in these days of civil hurricanes, only cowards will stay in their beds.” (José V. Ordeñana, Secretary of Unión Democrática Universitaria of Guayaquil)
“We are living at the crucial moment of our history.” (Partido Comunista del Ecuador, 24 July 1943)
“Our nationality has been threatened with death.” (Comité Nacional de los Trabajadores del Ecuador)
“This is the definitive time for our homeland.” (Comité Femenino de Chimborazo pro Velasco Ibarra, Riobamba, 12 May 1944)
“If we do not save ourselves at this crucial moment of our history, we will disappear.” (Alianza Democrática Ecuatoriana, Guayas, 26 December 1943)
“These are dreadful times of misery, uncertainty, and agony.” (La voz del pueblo, 20 February 1944)
“We are in the moment of to be or not to be.” (estamos en el instante de ser o no ser) (Velasco Ibarra, 7 March 1944)
La Gloriosa in Guayaquil
According to participants, in the context of all of the above, young army officers and civilians had agreed to stage an uprising in Guaya quil. The contacts between ADE politicians and young officers had begun in Guayaquil in April 1944. By 17 May they had agreed that they would revolt in response to any of the following events: “(1) massacre against the people; (2) imprisonment of an involved officer; or (3) electoral fraud” (Naranjo 1945,13). The military high commanders suspected that a revolt was being planned and arrested junior military officers. The government also jailed some of ADE’s civilians involved with the plot. Thus, the conspirators had to move up the insurrection to the night of Sunday, 28 May—Mother’s Day.
On the night of 28 May civilians and draftees under the command of the “known Communist leader Lara Cruz” attacked the telegraph office, interrupting communications with Quito. At 11:15 p.m. conscripts and civilians assaulted the security office and proceeded to destroy furniture and liberate prisoners. Meanwhile, civilians marched through the city shouting, “Viva Velasco Ibarra.” Liberal meeting places, such as the dance salons El Pigal and El Dixie belonging to the Echeverría brothers, were destroyed, as well as the bar-restaurant Miraflores of Enrique Zamora and the food and liquor store of Tar -quiño Alaña. The transit police headquarters and the provincial al cohol tax office were also ravaged. Crowds burned the car of the governor of Guayas province and the house of the police chief, Manuel Carbo Paredes.
Meanwhile, young military officers, with the support of organized civilian militia, were preparing for the main military objective: the attack on the carabineros’ barracks. In front of the military garrison, there were “lots of people … offering their services and asking for weapons; the cries of ‘Viva la Revolución,’ ‘Viva Velasco Ibarra,’ ‘Viva el Ejército,’ ‘Abajo Arroyo,’ could be heard” (Naranjo 1945, 23). The bloody attack on the carabineros’ barracks lasted through the night.
On the morning of the 29 th, around 7:30 A.M., civilian and military combatants, along with other bystanders, entered the defeated carabineros’ barracks. They proceeded to “throw to the crowds all the weaponry they found …, and a few moments later the doors … were opened so all the people could come inside” (Girón 1945, 211). Finally the crowds burned the barracks. “After inquiring why the building was burned, the conclusion was that a group of angry people with intense hatred did not want the quarters of the Carabinero Battalion of Guayaquil to exist any more” (Naranjo 1945, 32).
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