Guatemala prior to the US-sponsored coup that radicalized che guevara and solidified in his mind the conviction that socialism couldn&#x27;t work democratically when capitalist imperialists had no respect for democracy.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.greenleft.org.au&#x2F;node&#x2F;56590" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.greenleft.org.au&#x2F;node&#x2F;56590</a><p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Che_Guevara#Guatemala.2C_.C3.81rbenz.2C_and_United_Fruit" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Che_Guevara#Guatemala.2C_.C3.8...</a> :<p>Later that month, Guevara arrived in Guatemala where President Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán headed a democratically elected government that, through land reform and other initiatives, was attempting to end the latifundia system. To accomplish this, President Árbenz had enacted a major land reform program, where all uncultivated portions of large land holdings were to be expropriated and redistributed to landless peasants. The biggest land owner, and one most affected by the reforms, was the United Fruit Company, from which the Árbenz government had already taken more than 225,000 acres (91,000 ha) of uncultivated land.[47] ...<p>The overthrow of the Arbenz regime cemented Guevara&#x27;s view of the United States as an imperialist power that would oppose and attempt to destroy any government that sought to redress the socioeconomic inequality endemic to Latin America and other developing countries. In speaking about the coup Guevara stated:<p>&quot;The last Latin American revolutionary democracy – that of Jacobo Arbenz – failed as a result of the cold premeditated aggression carried out by the United States. Its visible head was the Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, a man who, through a rare coincidence, was also a stockholder and attorney for the United Fruit Company.&quot;[54]<p>Guevara&#x27;s conviction that Marxism achieved through armed struggle and defended by an armed populace was the only way to rectify such conditions was thus strengthened.[57] Gadea wrote later, &quot;It was Guatemala which finally convinced him of the necessity for armed struggle and for taking the initiative against imperialism. By the time he left, he was sure of this.&quot;[58] &quot;<p>just some context for the old refrain of &quot;communism always leads to us capitalists whining about democracy.&quot; for you folks i dare you to read the next 40 years of Guatemala&#x27;s peaceful capitalist history!