José Carlos Mariátegui

José Carlos Mariátegui La Chira (14 June 1894 – 16 April 1930) was a Peruvian journalist, political philosopher, and activist. A prolific writer before his early death at age 35, he is considered one of the most influential Latin American socialists of the 20th century - wikipedia

YOUTUBE GgbjBOPhvCs José Carlos Mariátegui at La Herradura Beach (Lima), two months before his death with his his wife and children.

Mariátegui's most famous work, Seven Interpretive Essays on Peruvian Reality (1928), is still widely read in South America. An avowed, self-taught Marxist, he insisted that a socialist revolution should evolve organically in Latin America on the basis of local conditions and practices, not the result of mechanically applying a European formula.

José Carlos Mariátegui en 1928 - wikimedia

# Influence

In different ways, organizations like Shining Path, and the Túpac Amaru Revolutionary Movement, and the Peruvian Communist Party all look towards Mariátegui and his writings.

Mariategui's ideas have recently seen a major revival due to the rise of leftist governments all over South America, in particular in Bolivia where in 2005 Evo Morales became that country's first ever indigenous president since the Conquest 500 years earlier (following Mexico's Benito Juárez).

The rise of popular indigenous movements in Ecuador and Peru have also sparked a renewed interest in Mariategui's writings concerning the role of indigenous peoples in a Latin American revolution.

The current ruling party in Peru, the Peruvian Nationalist Party, claims Mariategui as one of its ideological fore-thinkers.

# Quotes - Italian fascism represents, clearly, the anti-revolution or, as it is usually called, the counter-revolution. The fascist offensive is explained, and is realised in Italy, as a consequence of a retreat or a defeat of the revolution. - I am self-taught. I once registered in Arts in Lima, but only in the interest of taking an erudite Augustine’s Latin course. And, in Europe I freely attended some courses, but without ever deciding to lose my extra-collegiate, and perhaps anti-collegiate, status. - Peru is a semi-feudal and semi-colonial country at the same time. Though this may seem as a paradox, this is a fact and has to be changed. - The fight is long and tough, but together we can make it.

Mariátegui is also responsible for coining the phrase, in reference to Marxism, sendero luminoso al futuro ("the Shining Path to the future").

This phrase later became the name of the Shining Path Maoist guerrilla organization in Peru as a means of differentiating them from other Communist groups (they preferred to be called the Communist Party of Peru).