Latin-American Studies

The Left in Latin America experienced lean years in 1950s with most of the states having communist movements banned. For example, the Bolivian revolution of 1952 allowed superior capacity for political enlistment by multi-class nationalist organizations than those of the orthodox Left. The immediate impacts of the victory of Fidel and the widening gap between USSR and China on the Left in Latin America as well as on the Right were electrifying. All characteristics of belief, of attained wisdom, and cultural practice were subjected to examination in the light of achieving revolution from a rural guerrilla without necessary the involvement of the communist movement. At the epicenter of the new debate on the Left was the necessity to re-analyze the social structure of Latin American states, more so on the vexed question of the status and function of the national bourgeoisie and of the political capability of the peasantry. Some of the issues that needed re-analysis were whether the revolutionary process needed to go through stages, the relation between military and political wings of the revolution and how the revolutionary could neutralize the military forces of the government, and whether Cuba model was an exceptional case or could be replicated elsewhere (Alain, 1989, Leslie, 1998).

Tension on international communism affected to a certain degree the Left in Latin America as well as the Right but the Left was significantly affected. The deteriorating relationship between USSR and China led to Latin America warning its members on the dangers that were associated with Chinese communism although these dangers were more to the socialist movements than they were to the communists (Leslie, 1998  1994). This led to formation of pro-Chinese movements which were more dogmatic and sectarian hard liners with no capacity to build mass movement.

Effects of Soviet Union and China Dispute in Peru and Venezuela
Cuban revolution took place during a time of tension in international communism. The relationship between USSR and China were deteriorating and this affected the Left in Latin America to a certain degree as well as the Right. China had started working hard to draw Latin American communists away from USSR. This hard work was energized by the missile crisis that hit Cuba. China support for guerrilla organization was in nearly all cases verbal. They also showed lack of enthusiasm to adopt the Cuban model and rather advocated for national democratic united front model. According to the Latin America, Cuban model was offering a fortune for their rise and a possibility of a triumphant national liberation fight against what had been considered as overwhelming odds. Such movement by the Chinese was aimed at reducing the USSR influence in Latin America. However the enthusiasm by the Left in Latin America was short lived and declined when Cuba failed to achieve the unrealistic expectations invested in it by the Left. The long term impact of this failure was to divide the Left between those who hoped to realize socialism through peaceful models and those who established revolutionary organizations that sought to snatch supremacy through political violence (Leslie, 1998). The Cuban model of attaining supremacy seemed less applicable to the Left and this was evidenced by the first wave of guerrilla movements defeat in the 60s (Alain, 1989).

In Peru, the guerrilla faction was ideologically fragmented between the Apristas dissident Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria (MIR) and the communist dissident Ejrcito de Liberacin Nacinal (ELN) (Leslie, 1998). These two parties had no urban base and thus lacked necessary supplies. They were also alienated from the peasantry by cultural and linguistic gaps and they lacked rural areas environment know how and programs that could have won them support from the peasant. U.S. technical support for the Peruvian army made it easy to deal with the guerrilla and led to the defeat of the Peruvian guerrilla (Alain, 1989). This defeat resulted to a heated argument inside the Maoist organization in Peru which argued that the defeat demonstrated the need to have the revolution based in urban area rather than rural areas. There was disagreement between the Maoist and a group led by Abimael which pressed for continued armed struggle in the rural areas. The Abimael group later left the movement and established Sendero Luminoso movement (Leslie, 1998).

The state that showed signs of success of the Cuban revolution model was Venezuela. This was as a result of the communist party support to the guerrillas and the fragility of the democratic system established in 1958 (Leslie, 1998  1994). The communist party in Venezuela had enjoyed a degree of independence from international relations. For example, it retained independent stand in the Sino-Soviet conflict (Leslie, 1998). The Venezuelan communist party enjoyed high esteem for the role it played in opposing dictatorship and looked forward for collaboration with other parties in future regime. This however was not welcomed by the major party Accin Democrtica (AD). Nevertheless, there were groups within AD that felt that the party had failed to honor its socialist commitment and this resulted to a three split within the AD party in the 60s. Hostility between the Accin Democrtica and the communists ruled out any collaboration and this led to communists joining the guerrilla in 1963. This move raised the expectation of revolution on the Left. The new regime was far from being firmly established and was experiencing challenges both from Right and left. This was worsened by the support of the Venezuela guerrilla by Cuba (Leslie, 1998).

Despite this enabling environment to achieve revolution in Venezuela, the guerrilla failed terribly. Even with the support from communist party, they were not well prepared for such action. Majority of the participant in the central organizing committee were rounded up before the commencement of the action. Decision to abscond the guerrilla was abrupt as the decision to join the movement. This created dissent in the party and some members were expelled such as Douglas Bravo a major guerrilla leader. The communist party had undervalued the degree to which majority of the social units in Venezuela were devoted to democracy and their support for the major political parties (Leslie, 1994). This made the communist party to loose all its earlier power in the labor movement where the Accin Democrtica was much more popular. They also lost congress and press representation in addition to the loss of students support. The party became secluded from other parties. It lost all the ideological initiative it had infatuated (Leslie, 1998  Alain, 1989).

Conclusion
The 80s saw significant transformation in international communism, from the monolithic insistence to the pluralism of socialism to the final disintegration of the USSR with its communism as a feasible political ideology. One of the resultant of these occurrences was the reduction of concern and support from USSR for local communist organizations. Spreading of communism in Latin America was no longer a priority of USSR but their priority was on an air route to Latin America and entrance to Pacific fishing grounds for economic reasons and a welcoming party there could be of great benefit to the USSR (Leslie, 1998). Much more significant than loosing material help was the spoiling of the ideological stance of Marxism in Latin America. The Left lost the mobilizing insight of socialist culture to be realized by revolution with the collapse of international communism. The vision of revolution became not only unimaginable but also undesired venture (Leslie, 1998). The only communist organization standing in Latin America remained in the Castro government in Cuba. However Castro regime remained as a rallying point for those even after being disheartened with Cuba economic failure felt that Cuba needed help against United State imperialism (Wright, 2001).