Coup Atlas Research Database
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13510041948AttemptedMilitary coup

Peru, 1948 — military coup attempt

Peru (PER)South America, AmericasOctober 4, 1948

Event Summary

On 3 to 4 October 1948 sailors at the Callao naval base rose against President Jose Luis Bustamante y Rivero of Peru in a revolt encouraged by the left wing of the APRA party, which had planned a coup of its own as its rupture with the government deepened. The army bloodily crushed the rising, with some 250 rebels and 60 government soldiers killed, and Bustamante outlawed APRA on 4 October with hundreds of naval personnel arrested. The attempt failed to topple the president but destroyed the political balance that had kept him in office: the revolt became the turning point for the agro export oligarchy and anti-APRA military sectors, and on 27 October General Manuel Odria rose at Arequipa in the Restorative Revolution that deposed Bustamante and deported him to Argentina by 29 October 1948.

Researched Details

Researched

Independent research, added record by record. Hover any label for what it means.

Target identified in Coup Atlas research: President Jose Luis Bustamante y Rivero survived the Callao revolt unharmed, but was overthrown by Odria three weeks later
RESEARCHED NAME
Key figures
Jose Luis Bustamante y Rivero (president of Peru, target)
APRA left-wing (instigators of the naval revolt)
Victor Raul Haya de la Torre (APRA leader)
Manuel A. Odria (general who exploited the crisis to seize power)

Sources

Government troops suppressed a naval rebellion led by APRA leaders in Lima and Callao on October 3 to 4, 1948, killing some 250 rebels and 60 government soldiers, and Bustamante outlawed APRA on October 4 with about 800 naval personnel detained.
SOURCE REVIEWED University of Central Arkansas DADM Project, Peru 1912 to present open source ↗
The uprising of the sailors in Callao on October 3, 1948, encouraged by APRA and sympathetic soldiers, was the turning point for the export oligarchy and anti-APRA sectors to begin the path to power through a coup.
SOURCE REVIEWED Wikipedia, 1948 Peruvian coup d'etat open source ↗
Elements of the APRA left-wing went ahead of the party leadership and encouraged the sailors' rebellion, which the army bloodily crushed on October 3, 1948, while the military itself, instigated by the agro mining export sector, was plotting its own coup.
SOURCE REVIEWED Wikipedia, History of Peru 1948 to 1956 open source ↗
On October 27, 1948, Odria revolted at the head of the Arequipa garrison, and the coup succeeded when the Lima garrison under General Zenon Noriega joined, ending with Bustamante deported to Buenos Aires.
SOURCE REVIEWED Wikipedia, 1948 Peruvian coup d'etat open source ↗

Editorial Note

Dataset date 4 October 1948 falls on the second day of the 3 to 4 October Callao revolt; treated as the same event. Middle link in the 1948 chain against Bustamante: the July Llosa rebellion (enriched in batch 56), this naval rising, and Odria's successful October coup already enriched among the successful set.

Cross-Reference

Only one dataset carries it. One of the three reference datasets we check against carries this event; the others do not list it. That is not a contradiction — the datasets cover different periods and use different thresholds — but it means the record has had less outside corroboration.

Identifiers for finding this same event in the other datasets:

Cline Center id
13510041948

How the match is made is described in crossref-report.md.

Outcome and Target

Coup Atlas research identifies the target as: President Jose Luis Bustamante y Rivero survived the Callao revolt unharmed, but was overthrown by Odria three weeks later.

Baseline coding: Coup attempt failed to remove the incumbent. Recorded leader fate: remained in office; not physically harmed. The baseline file does not name individual targets; researched names are kept in a separate layer.

Baseline Dataset Citation

Cline Center Coup d’État Project Dataset, v2.2.2
Peyton, Buddy, Joseph Bajjalieh, Michael Martin, and Andrea Gerald. 2026. Cline Center Coup d’État Project Dataset. Cline Center for Advanced Social Research. V.2.2.2. February 17. University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. doi: 10.13012/B2IDB-9651987_V10
⚑ This citation establishes the coded baseline record; use the claim-level sources above for the researched narrative.

Baseline Source-Document Entries

CSP

Named in the baseline source document; no article citation was recorded.

Luttwak

Named in the baseline source document; no article citation was recorded.

Wikipedia

New York Times

“Peru Sentences Rebel Group,” March 23, 1950

This is the citation trail carried by the baseline dataset, grouped by outlet and rejoined from the line-wrapped original. Coup Atlas has not independently re-checked every document; read the original before citing a specific claim. URLs the import damaged beyond safe repair are shown as plain text and listed in citations-report.md. How this list is built →

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