Marxism and Marxist Movements in Latin America in Recent Soviet Historical Writing Open Access

Among the changes that took place in the Soviet Union following the death of Stalin in 1953 was the reappraisal and reorientation of historical scholarship. The elaborate debate that this change generated in the Soviet Union in 1956-1957 was reflected largely in the pages of Voprosy Istorii. Prof. Cyril Black has discussed this shift in emphasis in Soviet historical writing and its significance for the work of contemporary Soviet historians in his essay, “History and Politics in the Soviet Union.”¹ Black points out that:

Fulfilling these party directives has necessitated the introduction of both structural and organizational changes in the historical profession in the USSR. Several historical journals of a general nature have been established in addition to those already published in the fields of history, government, and economies. The effort to obtain a fresh Marxist-Leninist interpretation of history from scholars has given rise to the development of much research of a collaborative nature involving an inter-disciplinary approach as opposed to traditional individual scholarship.

The problem of Marxism and Marxist movements in Latin America has been dealt with by Soviet historians as a part of the general pattern established in the wake of the party directives of 1956-1957.³ This paper will examine the relevant Soviet historical studies since 1957 and the general trends revealed in them. Since the paper will be at least partially bibliographic some word must be said at the outset concerning sources.

Of the new journals established in 1957 to facilitate the expansion of historical activity, Voprosy Istorii KPSS [Problems of the History of the Communism of the Soviet Union] and Novaya i Noveishaya Istoriya [Modern and Contemporary History] are particularly germane to the subject under discussion. Of the older journals Voprosy Istorii [Problems of History], Voprosy Filosofii [Problems of Philosophy], Voprosy Istorii Religii i Ateizma [Problems of the History of Religion and Atheism], Istoricheskii Arkhiv [Historical Archives], Mirovaya Ekonomika i Mezhdunarodnye Otnoshenvya, [World Economics and International Relations], and Vestnik Mirovoi Istorii Kul’tury [Notes on the History of World Culture], which suspended publication at the end of 1962, consistently carry articles dealing with the history of Latin America in general and the origin and development of Marxist movements in Latin America in particular.

In addition to a continual examination of Latin American history in the journals, a number of books have been published on the subject in recent years.⁴ Many of these books have been written by the same scholars who have regularly contributed journal articles; others are serial publications concerning the history and/or government of individual Latin American countries.

Two interrelated themes dominate the entire historical output. The origin, development and significance of Marxism and Marxist movements in Latin America and the alleged falsification and distortion of this development by Western historians are constant points of reference for Soviet historians who are Latin American specialists.

The problem of the origin of the labor movement in Latin America and Marxist influence upon it has been one of the paramount concerns of recent Soviet historical literature. Many Western historians, while acknowledging the existence of socialist and workers movements in Latin America prior to 1917, tend to emphasize the importance of the Russian Revolution and the establishment of the Third International in 1919 for the organization and development of Marxist movements in Latin America.⁵ Soviet historians have taken sharp issue with this interpretation since 1957 and have consistently attempted to push the significance of Marxism in the Latin American labor movement back some thirty years or more into the latter quarter of the nineteenth century. Their central thesis on this point is that Western historical interpretation is a perversion of historical fact.

The Latin American specialist, V. I. Ermolaev, published an article in Voprosy Istorii in 1959 in which he discussed the origin of the first workers’ organizations and Marxist groups in Latin America during the period 1870-1900.⁶ The tone of the article is established in the first paragraph:

He then proceeds to set the record “straight.”

Ermolaev describes the decline of monarchy, slavery, semi-feudal agricultural conditions and small handicraft industry as the result of the growth of capitalism in Latin America. With the growth of industrial capitalism, spurred on by waves of immigration from Europe, labor organizations began to organize. The author points out that these European immigrants brought the ideas of socialism, anarchism, and syndicalism with them and disseminated them through the burgeoning workers’ movements. Marxism, Ermolaev maintains, “was disseminated for the first time in Latin American countries by the selfless workers and supporters of the First International.. . .”⁸ In this discussion of the origins of the workers movement in Latin America, Ermolaev finds the counterpart of the various schisms and conflicts of the European labor movement of the nineteenth century appearing in the Western Hemisphere. The Marxian orientation of this interpretation is made explicit by the author when he remarks:

In 1960 Voprosy Istorii carried an article by another Soviet Latin Americanist, B. I. Koval’, devoted exclusively to the workers movement in Brazil at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century.¹⁰ He, too, justifies his work on the grounds that:

Koval’ approaches the history of the labor movement in Brazil from the same point of departure as did Ermolaev—the decline of monarchy, slavery, etc., as capitalism developed accompanied by the formation and growth of a Brazilian proletariat. He traces the development of industry in Brazil, its domination by first English and then American capital, the establishment of labor organizations, their publication of newspapers, initiation of strikes, and efforts to affiliate with and draw support from European workers’ organizations—particularly the First International.

Both Ermolaev and Koval’ single out Robert J. Alexander’s book, Communism in Latin America for criticism as being representative of the distortion of Latin American labor history engaged in by Western historians. Ermolaev, in denouncing the book, says that:

While Koval’, in referring to the Western falsification of Latin American history contents himself with saying, “The ‘work’ of the reactionary American historian, R. Alexander, serves as such an example.”¹³

Far from Western historians’ emphasis on the influence of the Russian Revolution and the Third International in the organization of the workers of Latin America being an accurate historical account, contemporary Soviet historians are developing the thesis that:

The appearance and dissemination of Marxism was as regular a phenomenon in Latin America as in other capitalist countries. The future ideology of the international proletariat, Marxism, has a history of many years standing in Latin America. The beginning of this history finds its roots in that time when the first workers organizations arose in Latin America and Marx and Engels created the international proletarian organization— the First International.. . .¹⁴

These two articles, which I have discussed at some length, are representative of numerous others¹⁵ that have appeared in Soviet journals and books since 1957 and demonstrate the way in which the party directives on historical research are being carried out.

Surveys of the Modern and Contemporary History of Mexico,¹⁶ published in 1960, is an example both of the application of the Marxist interpretation to Mexican history from the earliest times to the present and the use of collaboration between historians and other specialists to compile the book. This is the first book to appear in Russian that does not confine itself to single problems or periods in history but covers the whole range of Mexican history.

The first chapter of the book delves into Mayan, Toltec, and Aztec society and culture. The Spanish conquest is discussed from a Marxist viewpoint in terms of heroic struggles waged by freedom-loving Indians against the European invaders, recounts the ruthless destruction of the highly developed economic life of the Indians and the imposition of a colonialist regime by the Conquistadores.

The second chapter is devoted to the Mexican war of independence (1810-1821), which is also a favorite topic of the journals.¹⁷ The principal emphasis is placed on the popular nature of the struggle for independence and the authors see the primary historical significance of the war for independence as an important step toward the formation of a Mexican bourgeois nation.

Following this Marxist interpretation of Mexican history, the third chapter is devoted to an examination of the struggle of the Mexican people against the reactionary forces of the United States and France during the second quarter of the nineteenth century and an exposé of the interventionist nature of U.S. and French policies. The Mexican peoples’ failure in this struggle is attributed not only to the economic and military superiority of the U.S. but, to a considerable extent, to the anti-patriotic activities of the Mexican ruling classes seeking to retain their own privileged positions at the expense of the national interest.

The Mexican War of the Reform of 1854-1860 is treated as the bourgeois revolution in Mexico which gave impetus to the development of capitalism and the accompanying passage of wealth from the church into the hands of the bourgeoisie and landlords is seen as the initial source of capital accumulation in Mexico. This War of the Reform, however, like bourgeois revolutions elsewhere, although won by the liberals did not result in radical changes. The latifundia system, a social and economic prop of the reactionaries, and the political supremacy of the landlords were not eliminated.

The book continues the history of Mexico up to the post-World War II period fitting the War of 1861-1867, the Porfirio Díaz dictatorship, the revolution of 1910-1917, the impact of the depression of 1929, the presidency of Cardenas, etc., into a Marxist framework. Much is made of the history of Soviet-Mexican relations during World War II and the warm sympathy of the people of Mexico for the Soviet people.

The formation of the Mexican proletariat and the inception of the workers’ movement during the period of the Diaz dictatorship from 1877 to 1911 receives much attention. The spread of Marxism and its influence on the first working-class organizations is of particular interest. The authors stress the anti-imperialist character of the proletariat’s strike movement and thereby endow the class struggle of the Mexican proletariat with the twin objectives of overthrow of the Díaz dictatorship and destruction of the yoke of foreign (especially U. S.) imperialism.

In addition to historical studies devoted to special problems or periods of Latin American history, considerable attention has been paid to the writings of various late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Latin American historians and philosophers whose works were strongly directed toward the evaluation and elaboration of socialist and Marxist theories. Novaya i Noveishaya Istoriya carried a lengthy article in 1957 by S. I. Semenov and A. F. Shul’govskii on the Peruvian philosopher José Carlos Mariátegui.¹⁸ Mariátegui’s activities in the creation of the Communist Party of Peru and his relationship and antagonism to Haya de la Torre and his APRA organization is discussed at length. In 1960 Vestnik Istorii Mirovoi Kul’tury devoted considerable space to a discussion of Mariátegui’s role in the development of Peruvian national culture.¹⁹ His Marxist research, as applied to the social and economic problems of Peru, and his essays on the international crisis of capitalism, the revolutionary movement, and the struggle against revisionism are objects of study by Soviet scholars.

The Brazilian writer, Euclides da Cunha, is the subject of an article in Vestnik Istorii Mirovoi Kul’tury in 1961.²⁰ The article is designed to highlight his socialist ideas as part of the background of the historical and ideological conditions in Brazil at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century. Nor are contemporary Latin American historians, philosophers, and political leaders neglected in Soviet studies aimed at illuminating the significance of Marxism in the historical development of Latin America. Until it suspended publication, Vestnik Istorii Mirovoi Kul’tury was a prime source of such material.

That journal carried an article in 1960 by the Mexican historian and philosopher, Leopoldo Zea.²¹ Zea, on the faculty of the University of Mexico, presented a lengthy examination of the nineteenth-century liberation movements in Latin America in terms of the ideological conflict between romanticism and positivism. He traced the growth of positivism among Latin American revolutionaries and the effect of positivism upon Latin American nations resulting from the decline of Spanish and Portugese influence.

Zea’s article was answered in the next issue at some length by the Soviet Latin Americanist, Shul’govskii.²² Shul’govskii takes exception to the basic ideological and methodological premises of Zea’s conceptions which, he feels, consider specific traits of social and philosophical premises in Latin America from the point of view of self-evolution and the filiation of ideas and reduce the struggle of various social groups to a conflict of various ideological principles. This approach to the problems of Latin America is not calculated to reconcile itself with the Marxist viewpoint that is Shul’govskii’s objective so the major tenets of Zea’s article must be “corrected.”

Shul’govskii points out that the war of liberation fought by the Spanish colonies for their independence was a result of irreconcilable, objective contradictions between the developing productive forces of colonies, the growth of national self-consciousness, and the tyrannical policy of the feudal Spanish Empire. A strong, but by no means determining, influence on this struggle was exerted by the progressive ideas of the French Enlightenment, the ideas of the French Revolution, and the Revolutionary War in North America. During the war waged by the Spanish colonies for their independence, in which the masses took an active part, several of the tasks confronting the bourgeois revolution were partially accomplished. No fundamental social-economic changes, however, were effected in Latin America. The status of the big landowners and of the Catholic Church remained practically unchanged. These forces spared no effort to retain privileges and hamper the progressive development of Latin American countries.

Continuing his Marxist critique of Zea, Shul’govskii further notes that outstanding representatives of progressive social thought in Latin America took a strong stand against feudal-clerical ideology and the tyranny of dictatorial regimes. One of the salient features of these progressive thinkers—of which no note is taken in the article by Leopoldo Zea—is their awareness of the inadequacy of abstract enlightenment and their emphasis on the necessity of social reforms capable of converting the countries of Latin America into modern democratic states and adapted to Latin American reality. The views held by representatives of Latin American democracy differed from the conceptions of European bourgeois utilitarianism, with its doctrine of unrestricted enrichment and profit-seeking. For Latin American philosophers, progress meant not only economic and industrial development but also the development of national culture, the extension of public education, and the emancipation of the masses from clerical power. Thus, in the Latin American setting, the views advanced by the generation of romantics were an objective reflection of the aspirations of all progressive forces in Latin American society. For this reason their views cannot be reduced to “enlightenment” alone, as they are in the Zea article. At the same time the representatives of Latin American democracy took their stand as convinced patriots, defenders of national sovereignty for Latin American countries, and champions of national culture. This is all the more deserving of note since reactionary clerical circles in Latin America, advancing the theory of “Hispanidad,” are out to misrepresent the views of leading nineteenth-century thinkers in order to show that these thinkers were opponents of independent national culture and supporters of “Anglo-Saxonization” of the Latin American countries.

If Hegel had been standing on his head before Marx arrived at the University of Berlin and Marx had turned him right side up, Shul’govskii is doing the same thing for Professor Zea.

While a considerable portion of this paper has been devoted thus far to an examination of contemporary Soviet historians’ efforts to establish the origin of Marxism and Marxist movements in Latin America as early as the last quarter of the nineteenth century it should not be assumed that the significance of the advent of the Soviet Union upon the stage of world history has been overlooked in recent years in Soviet historical literature. Numerous books and articles have been devoted to the discussion and analysis of the influence of the Russian Revolution on the organization and activity of Latin American labor movements.²³ These articles are designed to demonstrate the importance to current Latin American labor movements of Marxist theories and interpretations of social and economic problems and the superiority of Marxist organizational experience for the success of popular revolutionary movements. Great stress is laid upon the sympathetic understanding and goodwill that the Soviet people have always extended to the people of Latin America. In fact, some work has been done on Russian reaction to the early nineteenth-century Latin American independence movements.²⁴ This is another example of the current trend in Soviet historiography of pushing historical relationship between Russians and Latin Americans as far back in time as possible without straining the limits of credibility too severely.

This greatly expanded concern for the production of a historical literature concerning Latin America that fits into the mold of Marxist interpretation has been accompanied by the necessity to organize and coordinate the scholarship, research, and publication. The problems involved in Soviet Latin American studies was discussed at length by S. S. Mikhailov, Director of the Institute of Latin America of the USSR Academy of Sciences.²⁵ Mikhailov pointed out that Soviet researchers have made a definite contribution to the Marxist elaboration of individual Latin American problems, concentrating their work on an analysis of the economic and political processes as they have developed in individual Latin American countries. He noted that particular importance should be attached to the investigation of such inadequately treated problems as the development of the national-liberation, working class, and other progressive movements, the role and position of the national bourgeoisie in the national-liberation struggle, and problems connected with the colonial policy of the imperialist powers, particularly the United States, towards Latin American countries.

The shortcomings that have faced those doing research in the field of Latin American studies have been the lack of adequate co-ordination of research conducted by scholars in the history, economy, geography, and culture of Latin American countries, the lack of attention paid to the specific features and individual peculiarities of Latin American countries, and the extremely narrow chronological scope characteristic of many of the research works. This last defect makes it extremely difficult to trace the development of events on a broader scale and give a proper analysis of the slowly evolving fundamental processes of Latin American development.

However, Mikhailov feels that the establishment of the Institute of Latin America has created the conditions necessary to correct the shortcomings and to further the work of acquainting the Soviet people with the history of the Latin Americans.

This interest in the study of Latin American history has not been confined to Soviet historians alone. Bibliographical studies of available and relevant Latin American historical material has appeared recently in some of the satellite countries²⁶ as well as in the Soviet Union.²⁷ In the interest of providing material bearing on the role and significance of Marxism and Marxist movements in Latin America, documents of the congresses and conferences of communist and workers parties and the resolutions of the plenums of their central committees are being translated into Russian and published in the Soviet Union.²⁸

Soviet historians carry on a running commentary on Latin American studies in the West, particularly in the United States, as something of an ancillary activity complementing their own researches on Latin America. Their concern with Western Latin American historiography takes the form both of monographs and books relating to Latin American-U.S. relations and numerous review articles of U.S. books and periodicals that deal with Latin America.²⁹

The question of and the problems relating to Marxism and Marxist movements in Latin America has, since 1957, occupied a prominent place in the work of Soviet scholars in the fields of history, economics, geography, politics, and culture. Even a cursory glance at the bibliographic information contained in the footnotes to this paper acquaints one with the fact that Soviet scholarship has produced a number of Latin American specialists who turn out a steady stream of articles and books primarily for the Russian reading public but which can also be made available in translation for a much wider audience.

The seriousness of the Soviet intent to develop a comprehensive Marxist interpretation of the history of Latin America in general and the Latin American labor movement in particular is attested to by the extent of the organizational and research effort that has been devoted to the project for the past seven years. The creation of a new institute in the Academy of Sciences, the range and scope of the research published thus far, and the constancy of the themes of the vital contributions made by Marxism in the development of Latin America and the distortion of historical fact by non-Marxist commentators, are ample evidence of the vigor with which the 1957 party directives concerning the function of the Soviet historian are being compiled.

The extent to which this Soviet effort, to promote communism at home and abroad by demonstrating in the light of Marxist-Leninist methodology how societies have evolved in the past and how they are evolving today, has been successful in attracting the interest of Latin American scholars has not been dealt with here. Whatever the degree of success achieved thus far, there is nothing available to date to indicate that there is any impending shift or modification in the current direction being followed by Soviet scholarship in its application of Marxist dogma to the interpretation of history.

Author notes