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The Latin American Left Since Allende: Perspectives and New Directions

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LA FUERZA DEMOCRATICA DE LA IDEA SOCIALISTA. By ARRATEJORGE. (Barcelona: Ediciones Documentos, 1985. Pp. 287.)
MEXICAN COMMUNISM, 1968–1983: EUROCOMMUNISM IN THE AMERICAS? By CARRBARRY. (La Jolla, Calif.: University of California, San Diego, 1985. Pp. 36. $6.00.)
“SENDERO LUMINOSO.” By DEGREGORICARLOS IVAN. (Lima: Instituto de Estudios Peruanos, 1986. Pp. 54.)

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Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 October 2022

Steve Ellner
Steve Ellner*
Affiliation:
Universidad de Oriente, Puerto La Cruz, Venezuela
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Type
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Information
Latin American Research Review , Volume 24 , Issue 2 , 1989 , pp. 143 - 167
Copyright
Copyright © 1989 by the University of Texas Press

Footnotes

*

The author is grateful to Susan Berglund and Richard Parker, both of the Universidad Central de Venezuela, for their critical comments.

References

Notes

1. Sergio Bitar, Transición, socialismo y democracia: la experiencia chilena (Mexico City: Siglo Veintiuno, 1979), 283; and Ellner, “The MAS Party in Venezuela,” Latin American Perspectives 49 (Spring 1986):101–4.

2. Despite his own pro-Communist sympathies, Carmelo Furci remarks in the book under review that the official history of the Chilean Communist party written by the renowned historian Hernán Ramírez-Necochea “is seriously limited by his partisan approach” (p. 173). See Ramírez-Necochea, Origen y formación del Partido Comunista de Chile (Santiago: Editorial Austral, 1965).

3. Barry Carr also argues for the ongoing influence of anarchism in the PCM throughout its history. See Carr, “Marxism and Anarchism in the Formation of the Mexican Communist Party, 1910–19,” Hispanic American Historical Review 63, no. 2 (1983):305.

4. Usually, the thoroughgoing self-criticisms in official Communist party histories involve shorter periods. In the case of the U.S. Communist party, its denunciation of “Browderism” took in only the years 1943 to 1945, even though Browder himself was president of the party for over ten years.

5. Enrique Semo, “The Mexican Left and the Economic Crisis,” in The Mexican Left, the Popular Movements, and the Politics of Austerity, edited by Barry Carr and Ricardo Anzaldúa Montoya (San Diego: Center for U.S.–Mexican Studies, University of California, 1986), 20–30; and Carr, “The Mexican Economic Debacle and the Labor Movement: A New Era or More of the Same?,” in Mexico's Economic Crisis: Challenges and Opportunities, edited by Donald L. Wyman (San Diego: Center for U.S.–Mexican Studies, University of California, 1983), 95. Córdova relies on Gramsci's theory of hegemony to justify working within established organizations and institutions. See Córdova, Sociedad y estado en el mundo moderno (Mexico City: Grijalbo, 1976), 249–85. For a concise summary of the positions of the various Mexican leftist parties and movements with regard to the Mexican Revolution and its current relevance, see Donald Hodges and Ross Gandy, Mexico: 1910–1976: Reform or Revolution? (London: Zed Press, 1979), 100–117.

6. Carr, “The Mexican Left, the Popular Movements, and the Politics of Austerity, 1982–1985,” in The Mexican Left, the Popular Movements, 18; and Carr, “The PSUM: The Unification Process on the Mexican Left, 1981–1985,” in Mexican Politics in Transition, edited by Judith Gentleman (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1987), 297.

7. Carr, “Impresiones del XIX Congreso del PCM, 1981,” Cuadernos Políticos 29 (July–Sept. 1981):87.

8. Ellner, Venezuela's Movimiento al Socialismo: From Guerrilla Defeat to Innovative Politics (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1988).

9. Ibid., 61.

10. In a particularly interesting analysis of the Venezuelan export sector, Terry Lynn Karl also argues for the stabilizing influence of oil on the social, political, and ideological life of the nation. See Karl, “Petroleum and Political Pacts: The Transition to Democracy in Venezuela,” LAR 22, no. 1 (1987):63–94. For an opposing viewpoint that minimizes the influence of oil, see Diego Abente, “Politics and Policies: The Limits of the Venezuelan Consociational Regime,” in Democracy in Latin America: Colombia and Venezuela, edited by Donald L. Herman (New York: Praeger, 1988), 133–54.

11. Carlos Altamirano, Dialéctica de una derrota (Mexico City: Siglo Veintiuno Editores, 1977), 86–87.

12. Y. Koroliov and M. Kudachkin, “Revolución y contrarrevolución en Chile en las investigaciones de los científicos soviéticos,” in Revolución y contrarrevolución en Chile: Unidad Popular, la lucha por el poder (Moscow: Academy of Sciences, 1980), 6–7.

13. A. Sobolev, “Revolución y contrarrevolución: la experiencia de Chile y los problemas de la lucha de clases,” in Revolución en América Latina: problemas y perspectivas (Bogotá: Colección América Latina, 1976), 145–50; and M. Kudachkin, Chile: la experiencia de la lucha por la unidad de las fuerzas de izquierda y las transformaciones revolucionarias (Moscow: Progreso, 1978), 205–7, 223–24.

14. Brian Loveman, “Military Dictatorship and Political Opposition in Chile, 1973–1986,” in Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs 28, no. 4 (Winter 1986–87):13.

15. In an interview with Mark Fried, Handal stated that Central America “has shown that armed struggle—and not simply guerrilla struggle—is going to play the principal role in Latin America's revolutionary process. … Unarmed forms of struggle, when not combined with armed struggle, have tended to go awry in Latin America.” See “Schafik Handal,” Report on the Americas 20, no. 5 (Sept.–Dec. 1986):39.

16. The authors frequently present empirical data without providing adequate reference information. For instance, an unspecified reference is made to “unofficial statistics” (p. 33) and to a “study of the Central and Regional Committees” of the Socialist party (p. 80). This shortcoming is particularly inexcusable with regard to statistical information prior to 1973 because the Socialist party, unlike the Communist party, enjoyed continuous legal status and had no need to suppress data regarding party membership.

17. All three books on Chile show particular concern for the controversial convention of Chillán in 1967, where the Socialist party declared itself “Marxist-Leninist.” While moderate Socialists discount the decision as improvised and at odds with the historical democratic commitment of their party, left-wing Socialists point to the convention as proof that their ideological concepts do not represent an abrupt break with the party's past. See, for instance, Raúl Ampuero, “El socialismo chileno entre ayer y mañana,” mimeo, Rome, 1985.

18. Interview with Daniel González, PS-Núñez leader and managing editor of Nueva Sociedad, 27 Jan. 1988, Caracas.

19. Elsewhere Arrate argues against the strategy of isolating the Communist party from the rest of the Chilean polity. See Arrate, El socialismo chileno: rescate y renovación (Rotterdam: Ediciones del Instituto para el Nuevo Chile, 1983), 15, 32. Arrate and other moderate socialists reject the armed struggle on pragmatic, rather than moralistic, grounds. See Gonzalo Martner, “La vía chilena al socialismo: planteamientos básicos y vigencia,” in Siete ensayos sobre democracia y socialismo en Chile (Santiago: Centro de Estudios Económicos y Sociales, 1986), 134–35.

20. The Spanish translation of Gillespie's book headed the best-seller list in Argentina. It was entitled Soldados de Perón: Los Montoneros (Buenos Aires: Grijalbo, 1987). Other popular accounts of the Montoneros have been written by journalist Pablo Guisani in Montoneros: la soberbia armada (Buenos Aires: Planeta, 1984); and by former guerrilla Miguel Bonasso in Recuerdos de la muerte (Buenos Aires: Editorial Bruguera, 1984). Guisani is particularly harsh in his judgment of Perón, whom he labels a fascist.

21. The revolutionary potential of the Peronist movement has been the source of considerable debate. Ernesto Laclau, in keeping with his theory of the nonspecificity of populist movements, argues for the affirmative. Ronaldo Munck questions Laclau's conclusions in Politics and Dependency in the Third World: The Case of Latin America (London: Zed Books, 1984), 269–74.

22. Munck contends that the government repression of the mid-1970s was as much, if not more, directed against the rank-and-file labor movement (whose leaders were labeled “industrial guerrillas”) than against the Montoneros and other clandestine leftist organizations. See Munck, Argentina from Anarchism to Peronism: Workers, Unions, and Politics, 1855–1985 (London: Zed Books, 1987), 197, 207.

23. This viewpoint has been expressed to me by several Argentine leftists who were politically active during the period. One instance occurred in my interview with Francisco José Iturraspe, 25 Jan. 1988, Caracas.

24. Regis Debray, Las pruebas de fuego: la crítica de las armas (Mexico City: Siglo Veintiuno, 1975), 2:159.

25. Gillespie, “The Urban Guerrilla in Latin America,” Terrorism, Ideology, and Revolution: The Origins of Modern Political Violence, edited by Noel O'Sullivan (Brighton, Engl.: Wheatsheaf, 1986), 171.

26. Ibid., 172.

27. H. Joachim Maitre, “The Network: Using Disinformation,” in The Red Orchestra: Instruments of Soviet Policy in Latin America and the Caribbean, edited by Dennis L. Bark (Stanford, Calif.: Hoover Institution, 1986), 117.

28. See Betto's interview with Fidel Castro in Fidel y la religión: conversaciones con Frei Betto (Havana: Oficina de Publicaciones del Consejo de Estado, 1985), 246.

29. Richard Parker argues that the unique features of the Sandinista model—state capitalism, a mixed economy, and a multiclass front in place of a working-class party—were anticipated by Haya de la Torre in his writings in the 1920s. See Parker, “Clase obrera y estrategia revolucionaria a la luz de la experiencia sandinista,” paper presented at the “Jornada sobre la Revolución Nicaragüense,” sponsored by the Facultad de Ciencias Económicas y Sociales at the Universidad Central de Venezuela, 6 Oct. 1987.

30. James Petras, “Whither the Nicaraguan Revolution?,” Monthly Review 31, no. 5 (Oct. 1979):9; and Marta Harnecker, La revolución social: Lenin y América Latina (Mexico City: Siglo Vientiuno, 1985), 133–34.

31. Carlos M. Vilas, Perfiles de la revolución sandinista (Havana: Ediciones Casa de las Américas, 1984), 183; and Vilas, “Socialismo en Nicaragua?,” Nueva Sociedad, no. 91 (Sept.–Oct. 1987):168–71. See also Gary Ruchwarger, “Las organizaciones de masas sandinistas y el proceso revolucionario,” in La revolución en Nicaragua: liberación nacional, democracia popular y transformación económica, edited by Richard Harris and Carlos Vilas (Mexico City: Ediciones Era, 1985), 169; and George Black, Triumph of the People: The Sandinista Revolution in Nicaragua (London: Zed Books, 1981), 255–56.

32. Vilas, “The Mass Organizations in Nicaragua: The Current Problematic and Perspectives for the Future,” in Monthly Review 38, no. 6 (Nov. 1986):24–25.

33. For a detailed analysis of the three factions in the Sandinista movement, see David Nolan, FSLN: The Ideology of the Sandinistas and the Nicaraguan Revolution (Coral Gables, Fla.: University of Miami, 1984), 32–83. On conflict in more recent years between factional representatives, see Lucia Annunziata, “Democracy and the Sandinistas,” The Nation 246, no. 13 (2 Apr. 1988):454–56.

34. Villalobos rejected the militaristic approach that had characterized his Ejército Revolucionario del Pueblo during its early years. See Tommie Sue Montgomery, “El Salvador: The Roots of Revolution,” in Central America: Crisis and Adaptation, edited by Steve C. Ropp and James A. Morris (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1984), 90–94; and Helio Goldsztein and Omar de Barros Filho, Un fusil para Ana Guadalupe: la guerra civil en El Salvador (Bogotá: Editorial Pluma, 1980), 192.

35. A similar process took place in Guatemala. See Luisa Gutiérrez and Esteban Ríos, “El movimiento armado en Guatemala,” Cuadernos Políticos 29 (July–Sept. 1981):98.

36. The distinction between rural and urban strategies is no longer the source of heated debate among guerrillas that it was in the 1960s. See Mark Falcoff, “Cuba: First among Equals,” in The Red Orchestra, 74.

37. George Black, “Introduction: Guatemala's Silent War,” Monthly Review 35, no. 3 (July–Aug. 1983):8. This special edition contains Mario Payeras's Days of the Jungle: The Testimony of a Guatemalan Guerrillero, 1972–1976.

38. Ejército Guerrillero de los Pobres, “The Indian People and the Guatemalan Revolution,” in Guatemala in Rebellion: Unfinished History, edited by Jonathan L. Fried, Marvin E. Gettleman, Deborah Levenson, and Nancy Peckenham (New York: Grove Press, 1983), 272.

39. The debate was particularly pronounced in Colombia in the 1960s. The Communists, who had favored a strategy of self-defense in regions under military siege, were by the 1970s supporting offensive operations when their Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC) emerged as the largest guerrilla organization. Communist party president Gilberto Vieira wrote that although the main form of struggle in Colombia was peaceful, “the armed struggle is the principal form in the guerrilla zones and there other forms of struggle are subordinate to it.” In recent years, the FARC has developed fraternal relations with other guerrilla organizations, partly in response to the failure of the government-sponsored peace accords. See Vieira, “La táctica leninista del Partido Comunista de Colombia” in Política y revolución en Colombia (táctica de los comunistas) (Bogotá: Biblioteca Marxista Colombiana, 1977), 49; Brian Loveman and Thomas M. Davies, Che Guevara: Guerrilla Warfare (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1985), 278–90; and “Proletarización,” ¿De dónde venimos, hacia dónde vamos, hacia dónde debemos ir? (Medellín: Editorial de Junio, 1975), 205. According to Michael S. Radu, the Central American Communist parties' revised positions regarding armed warfare reflect “Moscow's strategic change of attitude” toward the continent. See Radu, “Soviet Proxy Assets in Central America and the Caribbean,” in The Red Orchestra, 97.

40. For the best account of how the Left was able to parlay mass mobilizations into electoral gains, see Evelyne Huber Stephens, “The Peruvian Military Government, Labor Mobilization, and the Political Strength of the Left,” LAR 18, no. 2 (1983):57–93. On the role of the Sistema Nacional de Apoyo a la Movilización Social (SINAMOS), created by the Velasco government in 1971, in activating the mass movement, see Carlos Franco, Perú: participación popular (Lima: Ediciones CEDEP, 1979).

41. Degregori, “Sendero Luminoso: el desafío autoritario,” Nueva Sociedad 90 (July–Aug. 1987):34; and Teresa Tovar, “Barrios, ciudad, democracia y política,” in Movimientos sociales y democracia: la fundación de un nuevo orden, edited by Eduardo Bailón (Lima: DESCO, 1986), 118.

42. As in the case of Sandino in Nicaragua and Farabundo Martí in El Salvador, the legacy of Mariátegui served to facilitate leftist unity, as all sectors of the Left concurred in their appreciation of his historical importance. José Martí exerted a similar influence on the Cuban revolutionaries led by Fidel Castro. See Jorge Nieto, Izquierda y democracia en el Perú, 1975–1980 (Lima: DESCO, 1983), 122; José Antonio Vidal Sales, América Latina en el paredón (Barcelona: ATE, 1981), 113; Sheldon B. Liss, Roots of Revolution: Radical Thought in Cuba (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1987), 171; and Saul Landau, “Understanding Revolution: A Guide for Critics,” Monthly Review 39, no. 1 (May 1987):4.

43. Manuel J. Granados, “El PCP Sendero Luminoso: aproximaciones a su ideología,” Síntesis 3 (Sept.–Dec. 1987):233–34 (Madrid).

44. Degregori rejects the explanation offered by other authors that the closing of the market was part of the Sendero's autarchic vision based on Maoist ideology. See, for instance, Vera Gianotten, Topme de Wit, and Hans de Wit, “The Impact of Sendero Luminoso on Regional and National Politics in Peru,” in the Slater collection under review here (p. 194).

45. Ronald H. Berg, “Sendero Luminoso and the Peasantry of Andahuaylas,” Journal of Inter-American Studies and World Affairs 28, no. 4 (Winter 1986–87):166.

46. Cynthia McClintock: “Why Peasants Rebel: The Case of Peru's Sendero Luminoso,” World Politics 37, no. 1 (Oct. 1984):58; and James C. Scott, The Moral Economy of the Peasant: Rebellion and Subsistence in Southeast Asia (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1976).

47. Theda Skocpol, States and Social Revolutions (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1974); and Samuel L. Popkin, The Rational Peasant: The Political Economy of Rural Society in Vietnam (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1979).

48. Degregori's emphasis on the university base of Sendero Luminoso and its failure to become a true peasant movement is shared by Berg in “Sendero Luminoso and the Peasantry,” 170; and by Gianotten, de Wit, and de Wit in “The Impact of Sendero Luminoso,” 185.

49. For a recent analysis of the “first” and “second” generation of Latin American Communist leaders, see Manuel Caballero, Latin America and the Comintern, 1919–1943 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986).

50. An opposing view has been offered by a Trotskyist group known as the Brigada Simón Bolívar, which participated in the anti-Somoza struggle and was particularly critical of the Tendencia Insurreccional of the Sandinista movement, in Carlos Vig, Nicaragua: ¿reforma o revolución? (Bogota: n.p., 1980), 1:125.

51. Adolfo Gilly, La nueva Nicaragua: antimperialismo y lucha de clases (Mexico City: Editorial Nueva Imagen, 1980), 31–32; and Gilly, Guerra y política en El Salvador (Mexico City: Editorial Nueva Imagen, 1981), 150.

52. Interview with Alberto Koschuetzke, director of Nueva Sociedad, 27 Jan. 1988, Caracas.

53. Fernando I. Leiva and James Petras, “Chile: New Urban Movements and the Transition to Democracy,” Monthly Review 39, no. 3 (July–Aug. 1987):123.

54. Christian Tyler, “Trade Unionism in Brazil,” Third World Quarterly 4, no. 2 (Apr. 1982):315 (London).

55. Andrés Velasquez en entrevista (Caracas: Ediciones del Agua Mansa, 1987), 28; Daniel Hellinger, “Venezuelan Democracy and the Challenge of ‘Nuevo Sindicalismo,‘” paper presented at the Congress of the Latin American Studies Association, Boston, 23–25 Oct. 1986; and Ellner, Venezuela's Movimiento, 158–62. The antiparty thrust of the Matanceros was made evident to me at a conference organized by the group in Puerto Ordaz in April 1987, where I was invited to give a lecture on the Venezuelan labor movement from 1936 to 1958. During the question and answer period, several Matanceros leaders (including Andrés Velásquez) criticized my remarks on the positive role played by political parties in the formation and growth of the labor movement. They argued emphatically that political parties had consistently sold out the workers movement throughout Venezuelan history.

56. Ernesto Laclau, “Toward a Theory of Populism,” in his Politics and Ideology in Marxist Theory: Capitalism, Fascism, Populism (London: NLB, 1977). Laclau also explores the implications of this theory in “Tesis acerca de la forma hegemónica de la política,” in Hegemonía y alternativas políticas en América Latina, coordinated by Julio Labastida Martín del Campo (Mexico City: Siglo Veintiuno Editores, 1985), 19–44.

57. Rodney Arismendi, Vigencia del Marxismo-Leninismo (Mexico City: Grijalbo, 1984), 267.