Beyond the Comandantes: Revolutions and Revolutionaries since 1959

Hispanic American Historical Review, 2022

This volume is the latest contribution to a growing literature on the Latin American revolutionary Left, defined by Tanya Harmer and Alberto Martín Alvarez as antireformist forces who supported or engaged in armed struggle starting in the late 1950s and 1960s. The book traces some of the global connections that shaped Latin American revolutionary groups as well as those groups’ global impacts. The contributors’ use of seldom-tapped archives in Beijing,Moscow, Prague, and various Western European sites sets the volume apart from most studies of the Latin American Left.

After the debt crisis of the 1980s and the parallel Right-wing neoliberal assault across Latin America, roughly the last decade witnessed resurgence in Leftist movements and governments in the region. As imperial wars advanced in other areas of the world, Latin America served as a beacon of hope, a site of resistance. Latin American peasant, worker, and indigenous radicalism placed revolution back in the vocabulary of Leftists across the planet. At the same time, centre-Left regimes assumed power in Argentina, Ecuador and Brazil, only to perpetuate the neoliberal capitalist projects that preceded them. The state of the Latin American Left demands serious and sophisticated theoretical and historical analysis. This anthology—bringing together political scientists, anthropologists, historians, sociologists, economists, and journalists—will provide such an assessment. The central thematic issues of the period in question will be addressed, followed by a number of case studies written by the most astute radical Left observers of the contemporary setting. What role for state power in current Left political projects? What should revolution look like? What form does class struggle take in today’s context? What are the dynamics of centre-Left regimes? How do indigenous struggles relate to Left politics? What is the role of gender in revolutionary movements? How has the American Empire reacted to Latin American Leftist resurgence? What have been the rural and urban phases of social movement contention during the neoliberal era? The anthology will tackle these fundamental questions. This book is original in that it offers an integrated mix of themes and case studies regarding the contemporary Latin American Left resurgence. There is some variation in authors’ political perspectives, but all self-identify with the radical Left. While articles noting the phenomenon of Left resurgence exist, there is as of yet no integrated book explaining the relevance of the contemporary Latin American Left. TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter 1: Introduction: The Twenty-First Century Latin American Left: Theory and Practice. Jeffery R. Webber and Barry Carr Part I: Theoretical Issues Chapter 2: Socialist Strategies in Latin America Claudio Katz Chapter 3: The Latin American Left in the Face of the New Imperialism Henry Veltmeyer Chapter 4: Neoliberal Class Formation(s): The Informal Proletariat and “New” Workers’ Organizations in Latin America Susan Spronk Chapter 5: Revolution in Times of Neoliberal Hegemony: The Political Strategy of the MST in Brazil and the EZLN in Mexico Leandro Vergara-Camus Chapter 6: Barrio Women and Popular Politics in Chávez’s Venezuela Sujatha Fernandes Part II: Case Studies of the New Latin American Left Chapter 7: From Left-Indigenous Insurrection to Reconstituted Neoliberalism in Bolivia: Political Economy, Indigenous Liberation, and Class Struggle, 2000–2011 Jeffery R. Webber Chapter 8: Venezuela: An Electoral Road to Twenty-First Century Socialism? Gregory Wilpert Chapter 9: Ecuador: Indigenous Struggles and the Ambiguities of Electoral Power Marc Becker Chapter 10: Crisis and Recomposition in Argentina Emilia Castorina Chapter 11: Trade Unions, Social Conflict, and the Political Left in Present-Day Brazil: Between Breach and Compromise Ricardo Antunes Chapter 12: Neoliberal Authoritarianism, the “Democratic Transition,” and the Mexican Left Richard Roman and Edur Velasco Arregui Chapter 13: The Chilean Left after 1990: An Izquierda Permitida Championing Transnational Capital, A Historical Left Ensnared in the Past, and a New Radical Left in Gestation Fernando Leiva Chapter 14: From Guerrillas to Government: The Continued Relevance of the Central American Left Héctor Perla Jr., Marco Mojica, and Jared Bibler Chapter 15: The Overthrow of a Moderate and the Birth of a Radicalizing Resistance: The Coup against Manuel Zelaya and the History of Imperialism and Popular Struggle in Honduras Todd Gordon and Jeffery R. Webber

A Contracorriente, 2008

Latin American Research Review, 1995

Latin American Perspectives, 2013

The American Historical Review, 2009

CONSIDER SOME OF THE EVENTS IN LATIN AMERICA during the third week of June 1968. In La Paz, Bolivia, students, professors, and workers participated in the "March for University Autonomy" with signs denouncing the "military boot." In Guayaquil, the port city of Ecuador, students stoned and burned buses in a protest against hikes in fares for public transportation. In Caracas, Venezuela, 25,000 students from the Universidad Central marched in protest against budget cuts. In Santiago, Chile, just weeks after a mass protest movement had been pacified, street violence erupted in the downtown area after eight students were arrested when police broke into the university television station. In Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 1,500 students compelled the rector and the university council to listen to their views on university reform; for the next three days, thousands of students and others fought pitched battles in the streets with the police and the military. In Argentina, students engaged in mass protests in commemoration of the 1918 Córdoba Reforms, which enshrined the principle of university autonomy throughout the continent. In every major Argentinean city, when police attempted to stop the demonstrations, street fighting broke out. Throughout the country, opposition labor unions joined the protests. In Uruguay, despite a state of siege, student and worker protests continued. 1 Only the Wars of Independence and the strike wave of 1919 rival the dimensions and simultaneity of the 1968 protests. The largest and most prolonged protest movements took place in Uruguay, Brazil, and Mexico. An examination of those cases can shed light on the common characteristics of this vast mobilization. Military, conservative, and U.S. spokespeople in the late 1960s portrayed Cuban-inspired subversion as the principal threat to national security, necessitating an authoritarian response. Various policymakers and scholars since then have rationalized the necessity for military rule in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Uruguay during the 1960s and 1970s, often stressing the rhetoric and practice of the radical left as the cause of the rise of repressive regimes. 2 The "dos diablos" (two devils) thesis that emerged I would like to thank Rob Schneider for encouraging me to research and write this essay and for his suggestions. The highly perceptive commentaries of the six anonymous reviewers for the AHR were very useful, and I thank the readers. I would also like to express my gratitude to Greg Grandin and Valeria Manzano for reading drafts of the essay. Similarly, I appreciate the comments of my graduate class, who read an early draft of this article. I am also indebted to the staff of the CIESAS-DF library for their aid in obtaining and copying sources.

Latin American Research Review

In the late 1960s, several leftist political movements in Latin America began to claim the use of political violence as a means of social transformation. This second wave of leftist political violence was distinct from an earlier wave—composed of rural guerillas inspired by the Cuban Revolution, roughly a decade and a half earlier—in several ways. The later proponents of armed struggle emphasized the importance of cities in armed actions, not just rural settings. They also advocated interaction between armed organizations and other actors in social movements, including far-left nationalist and populist factions within traditional political parties and the Catholic Church. Armed action was seen by such groups as a valid response to increasingly repressive governments, and to limitations on political action that made social change through peaceful means impossible. The use of violence provided a way to develop collective action in the hostile environment of the Latin American Cold War, which was marked by extreme political and ideological polarization. Keywords: Cold War, political violence, left, authoritarianism, revolution, Social Catholic Action