Easily. Or, should I say that it never really advanced.

I became interested when I was staying with a coffee planter in Chiapas whose lands were adjacent to the Guatemalan border. His beans were picked by Guatemalan peasants who came on a trail across the mountains to the coffee plantation area.
I visited a peasant village with "escort" and heard some of their problems.

Everywhere, soldiers were present, their purpose to keep the peasants, mostly Indian-Mayan etc., under control. The land owners I met when I was orchid-hunting were well-educated, some from American-UK schools, but they regarded the peasants as a class whose sole purpose was to cater to their needs.