el_chavista
18th February 2012, 18:10
We often hear claims from left sections which support Chavez's and Morales' projects as being "Mariateguist" or "Marxist Latinoamericanist", for the revolutionary thought of two of the most important founders of Latin American Marxism, the Peruvian José Carlos Mariátegui and Cuban Julio Antonio Mella.
Towards the late 20s of last century, Latin American revolutionary Marxism separated from the emerging bourgeois populism, which is expressed in the debate Mariátegui and Mella engaged in against positions held in Peru by the party APRA (American Popular Revolutionary Alliance), led by Haya de la Torre.
Haya de la Torre, on behalf of the original Latin American space and time -which he called, like Mariátegui, as "Indoamerican," postulated an "anti-imperialism" that, however, would not be socialist or carried out by means of the proletarian revolution, but through a strong and interventionist state in the economy, to put limits and controls on private capital, both domestic and foreign, and from this base give way to Latin American development. This would be an alleged "anti-imperialist state" neither bourgeois nor proletarian.
For the emerging Latin American populism, any call to fight for the proletarian revolution seemed "European" and classified as "a Russian language that nobody understands." Haya de la Torre would say that both our right and left "political Latino American doctrine is mostly European [...] We live looking for a mental pattern that frees us to think for ourselves", and he summarized his "revolutionary" proposal with slogans like: "Against imperialism, for the political unity of Latin America, for the realization of social justice."
Mella and Mariátegui argued against this "original" idea that it would not be possible to overcome imperialist oppression at the hand of the bourgeois of the region without a proletarian revolution. Mariátegui said that "only the socialist revolution opposes to the advance of imperialism a final and true fence." Mella added: "In their struggle against imperialism (the thief abroad), the bourgeoisie (national thieves) joins the proletariat (good cannon fodder). But eventually the national bourgeoisie realizes that it is better to make an alliance with the imperialism. After all both pursue a similar interest. "Progressive" bourgeois become reactionaries. The concessions given to the proletariat, to have them on their side, will be betrayed when the proletariat become a danger to both the foreign and the national thieves."
Mariátegui and Mella didn't dream of or seek for "patriotic" or "nationalist" bourgeois that gave the battle for the expulsion of imperialism from our lands. Mella pointed to the inability of the bourgeois for this historic task and denounced his complicity with imperialism itself.
adapted from a LTV article (http://www.lts.org.ve/spip.php?article429#nb2)
Towards the late 20s of last century, Latin American revolutionary Marxism separated from the emerging bourgeois populism, which is expressed in the debate Mariátegui and Mella engaged in against positions held in Peru by the party APRA (American Popular Revolutionary Alliance), led by Haya de la Torre.
Haya de la Torre, on behalf of the original Latin American space and time -which he called, like Mariátegui, as "Indoamerican," postulated an "anti-imperialism" that, however, would not be socialist or carried out by means of the proletarian revolution, but through a strong and interventionist state in the economy, to put limits and controls on private capital, both domestic and foreign, and from this base give way to Latin American development. This would be an alleged "anti-imperialist state" neither bourgeois nor proletarian.
For the emerging Latin American populism, any call to fight for the proletarian revolution seemed "European" and classified as "a Russian language that nobody understands." Haya de la Torre would say that both our right and left "political Latino American doctrine is mostly European [...] We live looking for a mental pattern that frees us to think for ourselves", and he summarized his "revolutionary" proposal with slogans like: "Against imperialism, for the political unity of Latin America, for the realization of social justice."
Mella and Mariátegui argued against this "original" idea that it would not be possible to overcome imperialist oppression at the hand of the bourgeois of the region without a proletarian revolution. Mariátegui said that "only the socialist revolution opposes to the advance of imperialism a final and true fence." Mella added: "In their struggle against imperialism (the thief abroad), the bourgeoisie (national thieves) joins the proletariat (good cannon fodder). But eventually the national bourgeoisie realizes that it is better to make an alliance with the imperialism. After all both pursue a similar interest. "Progressive" bourgeois become reactionaries. The concessions given to the proletariat, to have them on their side, will be betrayed when the proletariat become a danger to both the foreign and the national thieves."
Mariátegui and Mella didn't dream of or seek for "patriotic" or "nationalist" bourgeois that gave the battle for the expulsion of imperialism from our lands. Mella pointed to the inability of the bourgeois for this historic task and denounced his complicity with imperialism itself.
adapted from a LTV article (http://www.lts.org.ve/spip.php?article429#nb2)