Violence And The Latin American Revolutionaries

This volume departs both from approaches to revolution in Latin America that emphasize interests and those that emphasize socioeconomic and political injustice. Rather, it deals with real life, flesh and bone, revolutionary cadres: their thoughts, backgrounds, mentalities, and behavior. Going beyond cliches about Soviet encroachment in Latin America and "injustice breeds revolution," the contributors address the issue of the relationship between leaders and followers in a revolutionary context, seeing revolutionary leaders as the key to articulating and defining the agenda of the "revolution." In contrast to most theorizing, revolutionary leaders almost invariably come from the privileged, even aristocratic classes. The findings raise the issue of how well these leaders actually represent the peoples for which they claim to speak. They also prompt questions about the democratic nature of guerrilla organizations. If the leaders are so far removed, by social background and education, personal experience and ideological articulation, from their followers, how realistic is it to see the Left as a purveyor of progress? Perhaps it is more correct, say the contributors, to see their claims as manipulative tactics directed to resolving a struggle for power among competing elites. The selection of topics ranges from the historical development of revolutionary struggles since Che Guevara (Halperin and Ratliff) to the more specific application and motivation behind them (Ybarra-Rojas and Tismaneanu). Chapters deal with the attempt to define a typology of revolutionary leaders (Radu) and their Western supporters (Hollander). Some authors (Payne, Horowitz) combine .these approaches. Many issues examined in this volume are new, including an analysis of the gap between the internationalist outlook of the leaders and the parochial views of their followers. The violent organizations of the Left in Latin America are shown to be largely the functional result of upper- and middle-class leaders who combine an appeal to the lumpenproletariat at home with support of alienated Westerners to pursue their own elitist agenda.

Latin America experienced an epochal cycle of revolutionary upheavals and insurgencies during the twentieth century, from the Mexican Revolution of 1910 through the mobilizations and terror in Central America, the Southern Cone, and the Andes during the 1970s and 1980s. In his introduction to A Century of Revolution, Greg Grandin argues that the dynamics of political violence and terror in Latin America are so recognizable in their enforcement of domination, their generation and maintenance of social exclusion, and their propulsion of historical change, that historians have tended to take them for granted, leaving unexamined important questions regarding their form and meaning. The essays in this groundbreaking collection take up these questions, providing a sociologically and historically nuanced view of the ideological hardening and accelerated polarization that marked Latin America’s twentieth century. Attentive to the interplay among overlapping local, regional, national, and international fields of power, the contributors focus on the dialectical relations between revolutionary and counterrevolutionary processes and their unfolding in the context of U.S. hemispheric and global hegemony. Through their fine-grained analyses of events in Chile, Colombia, Cuba, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Nicaragua, and Peru, they suggest a framework for interpreting the experiential nature of political violence while also analyzing its historical causes and consequences. In so doing, they set a new agenda for the study of revolutionary change and political violence in twentieth-century Latin America. Contributors Michelle Chase Jeffrey L. Gould Greg Grandin Lillian Guerra Forrest Hylton Gilbert M. Joseph Friedrich Katz Thomas Miller Klubock Neil Larsen Arno J. Mayer Carlota McAllister Jocelyn Olcott Gerardo Rénique Corey Robin Peter Winn

An in-depth overview of the major insurgent or terrorist movements in Latin Amer. (LA) since the Cuban Revolution. Part I contents: revolutionaries, patterns and methods of terrorism, mutations and evolution of political warfare, typology of leftist violence, and anti-Marxist violence. Part II is a handbook of revolutionary org's. in 13 countries. Info. on: location, origins, front organizations, membership, leadership, ideology, propaganda, views on violence, military structure, performance, training, logistics and equipment, recruitment and popular support, external support, relations with other groups, factionalism, and trends and assessment.

Few publications cover the full span of the history of revolutionary movements in Latin America. In Revolution and Revolutionaries, editor Daniel Castro examines all aspects of guerrilla warfare-from revolutionary programs to the repressive tactics used by various governments to rid themselves of the threats presented by revolutionary movements. In addition to illustrating specific cases of guerrilla struggles, Revolution and Revolutionaries also analyzes the political and social conditions that made the outbreak of revolutionary movements throughout the region unavoidable. Finally, Castro examines the remaining guerrilla movements still active in Latin America as the century comes to a close. Revolution and Revolutionaries revives the debate about the viability of revolutionary violence in Latin America, and will interest those studying Latin American history and sociology, and political science.

Leading figures and rising stars in the field present the first contribution explaining the transnational nature of the revolutionary violence of the New Left. Focusing on the processes of dissemination of ideologies and mobilization of ideas and repertoires of action among the revolutionary organizations of the New Left in Latin America, Europe, and the United States, this book contributes to our understanding of the dynamics of the New Left wave and, at the same time, helps explain the "why" of the emergence of very similar armed leftist groups in vastly different geographical and political contexts.

Some selections translated by the editors. Bibliography: p. [305]-308.

First published in 1983, this extraordinary study provides a comprehensive systematic evaluation of cross-national theorizing and quantitative empirical evidence on four interrelated phenomena: Political violence Crises Military Coups D’ État Revolutions. Findings from social-psychological research on aggression are integrated in this outstanding study, as well as results reported in social-historical studies of revolution. The focus of the book is always on analytical perspectives and corresponding empirical evidence. The author continually highlights the sociostructural and political conditions of political violence, crises and revolutions. This exceptionally detailed and systematic inventory of theories and research on a classic triad of political science (political violence, crises and revolutions) also includes a remarkable bibliography encompassing over 3000 items.

This book examines a generation of leftist militants who in the 1960s advocated revolutionary violence for social change in South America.