Guerrilla Movements in Latin America

by Richard Gott

Che Guevara´s death began a legend and closed an era. Based directly on the documents produced by the guerrillas themselves, this is the first comprehensive history of that era. In theory, immense disparity in local wealth combined with the heavy hand of "Yankee imperialism" laid the ground for revolution. In practice, however, circumstances conspired to thwart the plans of the revolutionary guerrillas. The Latin American Left was, and remains, seriously divided between Moscow-oriented Communists, Trotskyists, Maoists, pro-Cubans and simple nationalists. The rural guerrillas sought to spark off revolution through armed struggle. Yet they found themselves increasingly involved in ideological conflict with the Communists in the cities whilst rural support was rarely forthcoming with the peasants more mystified than enlightened by revolutionary rhetoric. Meanwhile government forces, with military intelligence support from the United States, evolved steadily more efficient techniques for dealing with the guerrillas.

Genres: History

632 pages, Paperback

First published December 31, 1970

Reviews

[Misha Voronenko · Rating 3 out of 5]

A well-written, but a rather obsolete analysis of the guerilla movements in Guatemala, Bolivia, Venezuela, Peru and Colombia. From today's perspective, it would have been interesting to read about later events as well. Of course , one cannot expect this from the book that was written early into the 1970s, and it does provide a valuable historical document. However, I could not get rid of the feeling that it would have been more interesting if it went to tell what happened with those movements later into the 80s, 90s and today.

The argument the author is trying to make is interesting, but repetitive as the pattern that the movements followed was somewhat repetitive. First, the movements are influenced by the idea of the foco promoted by Che and the Cuban revolution: revolutionaries take to the mountains in the hope of moving the needle of the popular revolution. Second, there is an internal split between the 'official' Communist party and the guerillas, under the influence of the Sino-Soviet split, the various splits within different Communist sub-ideologies (Trotskyist, Maoist, Leninist, etc.). Then it argues that these movements are pretty much done for because of the lack of support from the Communist parties, the local population and the effect of the death of Che. The End.

The narrative for all countries follow the same pattern, and that's why I stopped reading after Venezuela (I'm somewhat familiar with what happened in Bolivia, Peru and Colombia). That's why the subsequent history is badly needed as it negates the analysis made by the author: the subsequent guerillas learned lessons that came from the death of Che and made necessary adjustments. But this is another story, not described here.