Editing History of Paraguay (section)

===Morínigo, 1940–48===
{{main|Higinio Moríñigo}}
The era of the New Liberals, as Estigarribia's supporters were called, came to a sudden end on 7 September 1940, when the President and his wife died in an airplane crash. Hoping to maintain their control over government through a more submissive military man, the Old Liberal ministers and army leadership decided on the War Minister [[Higinio Moríñigo]] as the temporary president until new elections could be held in two months.

The apparently genial Moríñigo quickly proved himself a shrewd politician, and Liberal ministers resigned on 30 September, when they realized that they could not impose their will on him. Having inherited Estigarribia's near-dictatorial powers provided by the new 1940 Constitution, Moríñigo quickly banned ''febreristas'' and Liberals and clamped down drastically on free speech and [[individual liberty|individual liberties]].

A non-party dictator without a large body of supporters, Morínigo survived politically – despite many plots against him – because of his astute handling of an influential group of young military officers who held key positions of power.

The Allied victory in [[World War II]] pressured Moríñigo to liberalize his regime in 1946. Paraguay experienced a brief period of openness as he relaxed restrictions on free speech, allowed political exiles to return, and formed a coalition government with Liberals and ''febreristas''. Moríñigo's intentions about stepping down were unclear, however, and he maintained a ''de facto'' alliance with Colorado Party hardliners and their right-wing ''Guión Rojo'' (Red Banner) paramilitary group led by [[Juan Natalico Gonzalez]], which antagonized and terrorized the opposition. The result was a failed coup d'état in December 1946 and full-scale [[Paraguayan Civil War (1947)|civil war]] erupted in March 1947. Led by the exiled dictator [[Rafael Franco]], the revolutionaries were an unlikely coalition of ''febreristas'', Liberals and Communists, united only in their desire to overthrow Moríñigo.

The Colorados helped Moríñigo crush the insurgency, but the man who saved Moríñigo's government during crucial battles was the commander of the General Brúgez Artillery Regiment, Lieutenant Colonel [[Alfredo Stroessner]]. When a revolt at the Asunción Navy Yard put a strategic working-class neighborhood in rebel hands, Stroessner's regiment quickly reduced this area to rubble. When rebel gunboats threatened to dash upriver from Argentina to bombard the capital into submission, Stroessner's forces battled furiously and destroyed them.

By the end of the rebellion in August 1948 the Colorado Party, which had been out of power since 1904, had almost total control in Paraguay. The fighting had simplified politics by eliminating all other parties and by reducing the size of the army. As 90% of the officer corps had joined the rebels, fewer individuals were now in a position to compete for power.

However, the Colorados were split into rival factions. The hardline ''guionistas'', headed by the fiery left-leaning nationalist writer and publisher [[Juan Natalicio González]], opposed democratic practices. The moderate ''democráticos'', led by [[Federico Chaves]], favored free elections and a [[power-sharing]] arrangement with the other parties.

With Moríñigo's backing, González used his ''Guión Rojo'' paramilitary to intimidate ''democráticos'' and gain his party's presidential nomination. He ran unopposed in the long-promised 1948 elections. Suspecting that Moríñigo would not relinquish power to González, a group of Colorado military officers, including Stroessner, removed Moríñigo from office on 3 June 1948. After a short Presidency, González joined Moríñigo in exile and Chaves assumed Presidency on 10 September 1949.

Moríñigo had maintained order by severely restricting individual liberties, but as a result, he created a political vacuum. When he tried to fill it with the Colorado Party, he split the party in two, and neither faction could establish itself in power without help from the military. The creation of [[one-party rule]] and order at the expense of political liberty and acceptance of the army's role as the final political arbiter created conditions for the emergence of Stroessner's regime.