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Paths of Revolution: Selected Essays
First English-language anthology of one of Latin America’s pre-eminent Marxist writers
The Argentine-born writer Adolfo Gilly has directly observed many of Latin America’s most dramatic events, from the Bolivian Revolution of the 1950s and Cuba during the Missile Crisis to the guerrilla wars of Central America and Mexico’s Zapatista uprising. Paths of Revolution presents the first representative selection from across his extensive body of work, collecting close-quarters reportage, sharp political analyses and reflections on art and letters.
A living link between the New Left of the 1960s and the Pink Tide of recent decades, Gilly once described the twentieth century as a series of lightning flashes which can illuminate our present-day predicament. The essay form is where he fully comes into his own, covering a truly impressive range of topics and places. This collection draws out the continuities within one of the world’s more vibrant and politically successful left traditions.
In the introduction, Tony Wood (author of Russia Without Putin) offer an overall portrait of Gilly’s life and work.
The Argentine-born writer Adolfo Gilly has directly observed many of Latin America’s most dramatic events, from the Bolivian Revolution of the 1950s and Cuba during the Missile Crisis to the guerrilla wars of Central America and Mexico’s Zapatista uprising. Paths of Revolution presents the first representative selection from across his extensive body of work, collecting close-quarters reportage, sharp political analyses and reflections on art and letters.
A living link between the New Left of the 1960s and the Pink Tide of recent decades, Gilly once described the twentieth century as a series of lightning flashes which can illuminate our present-day predicament. The essay form is where he fully comes into his own, covering a truly impressive range of topics and places. This collection draws out the continuities within one of the world’s more vibrant and politically successful left traditions.
In the introduction, Tony Wood (author of Russia Without Putin) offer an overall portrait of Gilly’s life and work.
288 pages, Paperback
Published October 18, 2022
About the author
Adolfo Gilly
50 books9 followersAdolfo Atilio Gilly Malvagni was an Argentine-born Mexican historian and author of various books on the history of and politics of Mexico and Latin America.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
March 12, 2026
The Trotskyist thinker Adolfo Gilly had many roles in his life, from prisoner and professor to historian and popular intellectual. Having passed away last year, Gilly, like fellow Argentine-Mexican Enrique Dussel, is still fondly remembered not only in his home country of Argentina but in his adopted country of Mexico. His most infamous work La revolución interrumpida (The Revolution Interrupted, whose title in English was translated as The Mexican Revolution) is still widely read as a key secondary source on the Mexican Revolution in the anglophone world. However, many of his better writings are still unknown outside of Spanish language countries. His oeuvre runs deep and many of his better works have finally been translated into English and published as a single volume, Paths of Revolution: Selected Essays.
The essays in Paths of Revolution run from 1964, when Gilly was a member of J. Posadas’s Latin American Bureau based in Cuba, to 2017 as he reflected on the centennial of the Russian Revolution. His political evolution in this period ranges from his time as a journalist for the Montevideo-based Marcha then under the editorship of the infamous Eduardo Galeano, to his imprisonment under the PRI-dictatorship (Partido Revolucionario Institucional) in Mexico during the infamous Dirty War, to his warm embrace of the PRD (Partido de la Revolucion Democratica) led by Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, as well as the Zapatista movement in Chiapas in the 1990s as part of the revolts against the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
Gilly’s prose is both powerful and succinct. This is only magnified by the excellent translations of each essay. Organized in a simple chronological order and divided into four sections dealing with his political encounters in Cuba, Bolivia, Guatemala, Chile, Colombia, Nicaragua and elsewhere, his schematic Mexican historiographies, his opinions on the evolving politics of our century and finally with his notes on literature and culture broadly. His comparisons between the failed Bolivian Revolution and the more successful Sandinista Revolution, as well as his meeting with Camilo Torres in Bogotá less than a year before the famous assassination are rich in historical detail. Published in magazines and newspapers across the region and world, the essays and articles which encompass this book are both wide-ranging and deeply informative.
The writer’s reflections on his time in Havana during the Cuban Missile Crisis are quite revealing of how Cuban civil society reacted to the evacuation of the missiles and what they expected to happen. The same is also true of his interview with Salvador Allende in 1964 as he pointed to the grim possibility that Allende could end up assassinated like Kennedy. A similar point arises in his essay on the MR-13 guerilla movement in Guatemala and their analysis of why Jacobo Arbenz ultimately failed to arm the people in time to defend the revolution.
Perhaps his most historiographic essay among the selection is ‘Mexico: Subaltern Civilization’ in its implicit rejection of Octavio Paz’s idealist understanding of Mexico in Labyrinth of Solitude. Focused on the agrarian and national questions, his reading of Mexican history offers the reader a clear analysis enforced through his reading of subalternity as the political engine for rupture. Employing the ideas of Walter Benjamin, Antonio Gramsci and Ranajit Guha with skill, he emphasizes that ‘subalternity is not synonymous with submission’ but rather that its appearance on the historical scene is ‘an active condition of peace and war.’ (93) Gilly’s understanding Mexican history puts him in squarely in the same camp as the historians Friedrich Katz, John Mason Hart and John Womack. In ‘A Certain Idea of Mexico: The Presence, Nostalgia, and Persistence of Cardenism’ emphasis is placed on the legacy of Lázaro Cárdenas and cardenismo more generally as informing the many events that have shaped Mexican history from 1940 onwards.
Gilly presented ‘A Political Defense’, to Mexican authorities who had imprisoned him in the infamous Lecumberri prison in Mexico City after torturing him to extract a confession, and reads in the same manner as Fidel Castro’s infamous ‘History Will Absolve Me’ defense – both of which were produced in the face of anticommunist dictatorships. His critique of the PRI cuts sharply through the fog of propaganda of a government which considered itself progressive but had recently massacred students in Tlatelolco the year before to make way for the 1968 Summer Olympics, and was continually suppressing peasant leaders and ejido communities in Guerrero.
In his article on populist question in Latin America from 2005, ‘The Emerging “Threat” of Radical Populism’, Gilly correctly points out that what has driven what would later be termed the Pink Tide into existence was ‘the uprising of the subordinated. With their own style of organizing and engaging in politics, with their own imaginations and subjectivities, with their demands, and with their transitory and permanent organizations, their insurrections are once again filling the plazas, the neighborhoods, the streets, and towns.’ (224) Viewing populism as being driven by civil society on the one hand and the working classes on the other, Gilly proved once again to understand the situation through which our hemisphere has continually been living far better than government officials and their sympathetic media outlets in the US with their clear inability to define the phenomena.
While Gilly’s prose is admirable and clearly written for a popular audience, his analysis is often surface-level at best. Most of the essays were often written more descriptively than analytically, and the author rarely offers any points that speak beyond the dominant left discourse at the time of writing each essay. Given his reputation, more may be expected. However, this may be more an issue of those who selected these essays than the writer himself.
Surprisingly missing from this collection are Gilly’s reactions to the so-called democratic opening of the 2000 national election, which saw the end of one-party rule in Mexico – though without any real change in terms of class empowerment. Also, his reaction to the 2018 national election which, after seeing this current sexenio coming to a close, might have been the real democratic opening of the country. In fact, Gilly has written about other important political events, from the signing of NAFTA to the disappearances of the Ayotzinapa students, as well as countless articles denouncing the assassinations of union and peasant leaders across Mexico during the period of Felipe Calderón’s presidency. While the essays chosen for this collection are interesting, they hardly embody the many perspectives and analyses Gilly offered over his lifetime. One need only search the pages of past issues of the newspaper La Jornada for this to become clear.
Clearly a key work for anyone interested in Latin American history and politics, Paths of Revolution should find its way to the desks of organizers and scholars alike. Many of the essays are fundamental for a nuanced understanding of modern Mexican and Latin American history within the past century as a whole. We should continue to take his words seriously as they often speak to a universal principle of following the lead of those organizing for a better world from the most subaltern positions: ‘We would do better to trust them.’ (146)
The essays in Paths of Revolution run from 1964, when Gilly was a member of J. Posadas’s Latin American Bureau based in Cuba, to 2017 as he reflected on the centennial of the Russian Revolution. His political evolution in this period ranges from his time as a journalist for the Montevideo-based Marcha then under the editorship of the infamous Eduardo Galeano, to his imprisonment under the PRI-dictatorship (Partido Revolucionario Institucional) in Mexico during the infamous Dirty War, to his warm embrace of the PRD (Partido de la Revolucion Democratica) led by Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, as well as the Zapatista movement in Chiapas in the 1990s as part of the revolts against the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
Gilly’s prose is both powerful and succinct. This is only magnified by the excellent translations of each essay. Organized in a simple chronological order and divided into four sections dealing with his political encounters in Cuba, Bolivia, Guatemala, Chile, Colombia, Nicaragua and elsewhere, his schematic Mexican historiographies, his opinions on the evolving politics of our century and finally with his notes on literature and culture broadly. His comparisons between the failed Bolivian Revolution and the more successful Sandinista Revolution, as well as his meeting with Camilo Torres in Bogotá less than a year before the famous assassination are rich in historical detail. Published in magazines and newspapers across the region and world, the essays and articles which encompass this book are both wide-ranging and deeply informative.
The writer’s reflections on his time in Havana during the Cuban Missile Crisis are quite revealing of how Cuban civil society reacted to the evacuation of the missiles and what they expected to happen. The same is also true of his interview with Salvador Allende in 1964 as he pointed to the grim possibility that Allende could end up assassinated like Kennedy. A similar point arises in his essay on the MR-13 guerilla movement in Guatemala and their analysis of why Jacobo Arbenz ultimately failed to arm the people in time to defend the revolution.
Perhaps his most historiographic essay among the selection is ‘Mexico: Subaltern Civilization’ in its implicit rejection of Octavio Paz’s idealist understanding of Mexico in Labyrinth of Solitude. Focused on the agrarian and national questions, his reading of Mexican history offers the reader a clear analysis enforced through his reading of subalternity as the political engine for rupture. Employing the ideas of Walter Benjamin, Antonio Gramsci and Ranajit Guha with skill, he emphasizes that ‘subalternity is not synonymous with submission’ but rather that its appearance on the historical scene is ‘an active condition of peace and war.’ (93) Gilly’s understanding Mexican history puts him in squarely in the same camp as the historians Friedrich Katz, John Mason Hart and John Womack. In ‘A Certain Idea of Mexico: The Presence, Nostalgia, and Persistence of Cardenism’ emphasis is placed on the legacy of Lázaro Cárdenas and cardenismo more generally as informing the many events that have shaped Mexican history from 1940 onwards.
Gilly presented ‘A Political Defense’, to Mexican authorities who had imprisoned him in the infamous Lecumberri prison in Mexico City after torturing him to extract a confession, and reads in the same manner as Fidel Castro’s infamous ‘History Will Absolve Me’ defense – both of which were produced in the face of anticommunist dictatorships. His critique of the PRI cuts sharply through the fog of propaganda of a government which considered itself progressive but had recently massacred students in Tlatelolco the year before to make way for the 1968 Summer Olympics, and was continually suppressing peasant leaders and ejido communities in Guerrero.
In his article on populist question in Latin America from 2005, ‘The Emerging “Threat” of Radical Populism’, Gilly correctly points out that what has driven what would later be termed the Pink Tide into existence was ‘the uprising of the subordinated. With their own style of organizing and engaging in politics, with their own imaginations and subjectivities, with their demands, and with their transitory and permanent organizations, their insurrections are once again filling the plazas, the neighborhoods, the streets, and towns.’ (224) Viewing populism as being driven by civil society on the one hand and the working classes on the other, Gilly proved once again to understand the situation through which our hemisphere has continually been living far better than government officials and their sympathetic media outlets in the US with their clear inability to define the phenomena.
While Gilly’s prose is admirable and clearly written for a popular audience, his analysis is often surface-level at best. Most of the essays were often written more descriptively than analytically, and the author rarely offers any points that speak beyond the dominant left discourse at the time of writing each essay. Given his reputation, more may be expected. However, this may be more an issue of those who selected these essays than the writer himself.
Surprisingly missing from this collection are Gilly’s reactions to the so-called democratic opening of the 2000 national election, which saw the end of one-party rule in Mexico – though without any real change in terms of class empowerment. Also, his reaction to the 2018 national election which, after seeing this current sexenio coming to a close, might have been the real democratic opening of the country. In fact, Gilly has written about other important political events, from the signing of NAFTA to the disappearances of the Ayotzinapa students, as well as countless articles denouncing the assassinations of union and peasant leaders across Mexico during the period of Felipe Calderón’s presidency. While the essays chosen for this collection are interesting, they hardly embody the many perspectives and analyses Gilly offered over his lifetime. One need only search the pages of past issues of the newspaper La Jornada for this to become clear.
Clearly a key work for anyone interested in Latin American history and politics, Paths of Revolution should find its way to the desks of organizers and scholars alike. Many of the essays are fundamental for a nuanced understanding of modern Mexican and Latin American history within the past century as a whole. We should continue to take his words seriously as they often speak to a universal principle of following the lead of those organizing for a better world from the most subaltern positions: ‘We would do better to trust them.’ (146)
December 12, 2022
A collection of essays by one of South America's premier Marxist, journalist and revolutionary Adolfo Gilly. Translated for the first time in English this recent release has a large selection of work collected from his career spanning from the Cuban Revolution to the Pink Tide. Gillys perspective is rare and needed as we enter another wave of leftist success across Latin America and corresponding capitalist backlash. The highlights of this book are of course the anecdotes and interviews which get up close and personal with Latin America's socialist mythos.
A day with Allende, him walking the streets of Cuba during the October crisis, spending time with Guatemalan guerrillas after the fall of Arbenz and his first hand account of the Bolivian protest movements in the early 2000s are the easily the best parts here and I will remember for some time. The latter half of the book is filled with theoretical analysis with all its fourth international flare. I loved reading his thoughts on capital R Revolution as he is someone who has lived through multiple 1848s one could say. It is incredible the breadth of scholars he weaves together to make sense of capitalism and socialism in South America. Benjamin, Lenin, Borges and Commandante Marcos are all heavily present.
My only complaint with this unique collection are the journalism portions and the theoretical parts should really be in two different volumes. Reading about Gillys thoughts on Morales and Castro really made me want to read his perspective on figures like Chavez and Lula. Anyway this book was fantastic. I hope to see verso put out another translated work of this highly underated figure.
A day with Allende, him walking the streets of Cuba during the October crisis, spending time with Guatemalan guerrillas after the fall of Arbenz and his first hand account of the Bolivian protest movements in the early 2000s are the easily the best parts here and I will remember for some time. The latter half of the book is filled with theoretical analysis with all its fourth international flare. I loved reading his thoughts on capital R Revolution as he is someone who has lived through multiple 1848s one could say. It is incredible the breadth of scholars he weaves together to make sense of capitalism and socialism in South America. Benjamin, Lenin, Borges and Commandante Marcos are all heavily present.
My only complaint with this unique collection are the journalism portions and the theoretical parts should really be in two different volumes. Reading about Gillys thoughts on Morales and Castro really made me want to read his perspective on figures like Chavez and Lula. Anyway this book was fantastic. I hope to see verso put out another translated work of this highly underated figure.
August 22, 2024
It's an understatement to say Gilly led an interesting life. He was a dedicated socialist; an ardent Trotskyist and militant of the Fourth International; a field reporter in revolutionary hotspots throughout the 1950s 60s such as Bolivia, Cuba, Guatemala and later in Mexico's Chiapas; a political prisoner for six years and tortured by the Mexican state, a jail term in which he also wrote one of the most acclaimed books on The Mexican Revolution; and finally an internationally renowned scholar and professor.
This book contains a collection of articles and essays written throughout his long career, many of which remain as fresh and relevant as the day he wrote them.
This book contains a collection of articles and essays written throughout his long career, many of which remain as fresh and relevant as the day he wrote them.
March 8, 2025
Very illuminating series of essays. I needed to fill some gaps on my knowledge of socialism/Communism in Latin America and their various uprisings; this was a good introductory window into that. Plenty of works referenced in here that just make me want to seek out even more.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews