The Virtù of a Latin American Marxist

Despite recent progress, Latin America in the twenty-first century continues to be a region with alarming inequality indicators, persistent forms of social and political exclusion, an inconsistent and unequal development process, an increase in migratory waves, and high levels of violence. These indicators illustrate the persistence of colonial structures compounded by the current financial capitalism, generating a racist, exclusionary, unequal, and subordinate society more than ever in need of profound structural changes. In addition, these structures reveal the persistence of the coloniality of knowledge and power, relegating the region to a marginal role in modernity and in the contemporary international scene. They display a Eurocentric perspective that affects the region’s economic and political structures, reinforcing subordination and dependency, and, in the academic and political realms, impedes the development and appreciation of Latin America’s own critical thought. For this reason, Bitácora de un navegante: Teoría política y dialéctica de la historia latinoamericana (Antología esencial)(A Voyager’s Log: Political Theory and Dialectic of Latin American History [Essential Anthology]), in presenting an overview of Atilio Boron’s thought, contributes to the understanding and development of critical thought and, in particular, of Latin American Marxism and its current challenges.

Latin American Marxism has a long history, going back to the nineteenth century, which spotlighted classic intellectual and political figures (such as Recabarren, Aníbal Ponce, Juan Marinello, Julio Mella, Luis Carlos Prestes, and José Carlos Mariátegui) and contemporary ones (Che Guevara, Camilo Torres, Pablo González Casanova, Ruy Mauro Marini, Adolfo Sánchez Vázquez, Florestan Fernandes, Fernando Martínez Heredia, René Zavaleta, and Agustín Cuevas). As Michael Löwy (2016) has indicated, there is a fundamental core of reflection and action in this tradition centered on the debate over the nature, character, and dynamic of the Latin American revolution as an alternative to capitalism and the region’s secular problems. This debate was present, in one form or another, in all the intellectuals, movements, and Marxist organizations on the continent that, in an attempt to comprehend capitalism in Latin America and design a strategy to transcend it, were confronted with a tension between the acritical incorporation of dogmatic, Eurocentric Soviet Marxism and the fetishization of Latin American uniqueness, with the overvaluation of certain regional elements, that poses a challenge to the construction of a Latin American Marxism.

Furthermore, this element can be added to the debate today, based on the collapse of Soviet socialism, over the explanatory and emancipatory potential of Marxism for understanding capitalism’s current dynamic, both globally and regionally, and proposing alternatives. As some of the reflections appearing in Boron’s anthology demonstrate, Latin American Marxism faces two significant challenges: first, updating itself, combining the legacy of the classics of Marxist thought with contemporary work to understand current reality and construct a viable and appealing alternative, and, second, overcoming its Eurocentric heritage and engaging with new approaches (such as decolonial thought, the philosophy and theology of liberation, feminism, and the indigenous and Afro-descendant concepts emerging throughout the continent).

The anthology allows us to become acquainted with a Latin American Marxist public intellectual and to grasp his development and intellectual consolidation, presenting texts that speak of his formation and his various exiles, among them the Chilean experience, his doctorate in the United States, and the beginnings of his academic work in Mexico; his return to Argentina and his academic and political accomplishments as a professor of political theory at the Universidad de Buenos Aires; and his engagement with social movements and his role from 1998 to 2006 as executive secretary of the Consejo Latinoamericano de Ciencias Sociales (Latin American Council of Social Sciences—CLACSO). The texts making up the work, some previously unpublished or difficult to obtain, were selected by Sabrina González, a professor at the Universidad de Buenos Aires, who also provides an introduction that, along with the submission by the Cuban intellectual Francisco López Segrera, highlights the long history and importance of Boron’s work for Latin American critical thought.

The work is part of the CLACSO series Antologías del Pensamiento Social Latinoamericano y Caribeño. Since its inception, CLACSO has been a space for independent reflection on the Latin American situation, the development of social and critical thought, and the commitment to eliminate poverty and inequality through the building of an alternative path. Accordingly, it has published numerous works and collections on Latin American social thought, both classic and contemporary, seeking to inspire original productions on the understanding and construction of an independent path for the development of the sciences, mainly in Latin American societies. A large part of this effort was driven by Boron’s endeavors.

This anthology provides an overview of Boron’s works, creating an introductory work that brings together essential texts. Without being exhaustive in depth or diversity, it allows readers to become acquainted with the most important topics, concepts, and approaches he developed in the course of more than five decades of work. In addition, it enables us to see that his Marxism developed from the interaction of the classics of Marxism (Marx, Engels, Lenin, Rosa Luxemburg, and Gramsci, among others) with contemporary and Latin American influences (Pablo González Casanova, Edelberto Torres Rivas, Adolfo Sánchez Vázquez, Theotônio dos Santos, Agustín Cueva, Aníbal Quijano, and André Gunder Frank, among others). Boron’s analysis combines the Machiavellian tradition (the power dynamic of the political struggle, political analysis based on effective truth, history as a dynamic element, the interplay of ends and means, the republican government and political stability) with Gramscian Marxism, which includes this tradition among the fundamental elements of Marxism (class struggle and its factions, analysis of the state, revolution, political tactics and strategies, among others).

To this end, the work is organized into three sections. The first, “Estado, mercado e imperialismo” (State, Market, and Imperialism), is made up of texts that analyze these elements and related topics (hegemony, dictatorship, and populism) in terms of the contemporary political dynamic in Latin America, and the second, “Teoría social y praxis política” (Social Theory and Political Praxis), presents works by important writers (Machiavelli, Marx, Engels, Lenin, Rosa Luxemburg) and relevant topics in contemporary social thought. The third section, “Revolución en Nuestra América” (Revolution in Our America), presents two works on the actions and political legacy of Fidel Castro and Hugo Chávez.

The first section contains a previously unpublished text with an epilogue entitled “La formación y crisis del Estado oligárquico-liberal en la Argentina, 1880–1930” (The Formation and Crisis of the Oligarchic-Liberal State in Argentina, 1880–1930)” analyzing the oligarchic and liberal state in Argentina and the role of the social classes in its formation and crisis and displaying the maturing of Boron’s Marxism. The article “Mi camino hacia Marx: breve ensayo de autobiografía político-intelectual” (My Journey to Marx: A Brief Autobiographical, Politico-Intellectual Essay) sets out his encounter with a Marxism influenced by Peronism, first at home and later in the university, and the influence of his exile on his intellectual and political formation. Travel through Chile, the United States, and Mexico facilitated contact with different experiences and Marxist intellectuals who contributed to his formation and the flourishing of a Marxism that, combining theory and practice, incorporated Gramsci as a fundamental referent along with Mariátegui and Che Guevara. He also encountered issues such as the action of class factions in Latin America and imperialism and their impact on contemporary international relations, in addition to revealing a humble intellectual committed to the causes of his time. In this connection he says (95),

For me to have arrived at Marx was something inconceivable and would have been impossible if I had been born in Switzerland or Luxembourg. It was the brutal reality of exploitation and capitalist oppression that I began to see as a child that irreversibly propelled me toward him. That is why my defense of Marxism has no cracks, nor does my defense of the Cuban Revolution, which decisively marked my political consciousness and continues to be the irreplaceable beacon for every process of social, economic, and political emancipation that takes place in the most remote corners of the planet.

Another essay worthy of mention is “La verdad sobre la democracia capitalista” (The Truth about Capitalist Democracy), in which Boron, distancing himself from those who celebrated the meeting of democracy and capitalism at the end of the century and the affirmation of liberal democracy as the normative and political horizon, analyzes the weaknesses of this perspective, exposing the classist nature of contemporary democracy. He points to the various rationales and incompatibilities between democracy and market with respect to “(1) the ascendent vs. descendent logic of the legitimation of power; (2) the inclusive and participatory dynamic vs. the exclusionary and divided one; (3) the spirit of justice and equity vs. the craving for profit and wealth; and (4) citizens as subjects of rights vs. consumers” (16). Another significant piece in this section is “Populismo: Una digressión sobre la experiencia reciente” (Populism: A Digression on Recent Experience), which examines the recent progressive cycle in Latin America and relates it to the broader discussion of Latin American populism and the role of political leaders and their relationship to social classes. Observing this cycle and the reformist processes it entailed, he points out that its recent denouement reveals that, despite the diversity of experiences, any reform unleashes an international response and a brutal counterreform because of Latin America’s importance in the international system. This results from the conspiratorial and divested (never loyal) role of the bourgeois factions (the richest and most powerful), and the continuation of this process requires comprehensive emancipatory action—the conscientization of the middle and popular sectors, the strengthening of participatory democracy and popular leadership, and awareness that access to government does not necessarily mean access to state power and its capacity for social transformation.

The following section, on social theory and political praxis, discusses, on the basis of an analysis of the work of some classic contributors of political thought (Machiavelli) and of Marxism (Marx, Engels, Lenin, Rosa Luxemburg), contemporary topics (state, democracy, reforms, citizenry, history, the role of intellectuals) that permeate political debate and the theory and practice of Marxist groups and movements in Latin America today and their confrontations with (neo)liberal triumphalism. Although all of the chapters in this section are pertinent, we would highlight the articles “Maquiavelo y el infierno de los filósofos” (Machiavelli and the Philosophers’ Hell) and “Filosofía política y crítica de la sociedad burguesa: el legado teórico de Karl Marx” (Political Philosophy and Critique of Bourgeois Society: The Theoretical Legacy of Karl Marx), which seek to revive the work of these two essential political philosophers, indicating that biases and lack of knowledge tend to lead to a limited reading of the explanatory potential and the timeliness of their work. They demonstrate that Machiavelli teaches us to understand politics as a human activity, effectively analyzing it (“la veritá effettuale delle cose”) and emphasizing the elements that influence political action and the construction of a republicanism, based on popular action, that could provide stability to political processes. In the case of Marx, the basic reference permeating his work, Boron resumes his political analysis, stating his understanding of capitalism and of the elements, based on the oppressed social classes, that could guide political action toward transcending it.

Also worthy of mention is “Rosa Luxemburgo y la crítica al reformismo socialdemócrata” (Rosa Luxemburg and the Critique of Social Democratic Reformism), in which Boron, in addition to presenting the principal elements that characterize the work of this important referent of contemporary Marxism, analyzes the role of leadership in political action, its interaction with collective action, and its relation to the organizational model that should guide transformative political action. He demonstrates the importance of collective decisions and actions in affirming and consolidating social transformation processes, in addition to updating the famous debates between reform (means) and revolution (end), indicating how they can be seen as complementary rather than opposing processes (the interplay between means and ends).

The final section, “Revolución en Nuestra América” (Revolution in Our America) introduces two texts that analyze the profiles and accomplishments of two revolutionary political leaders in Latin America: Fidel Castro (“our peoples ¡Hasta la Victoria siempre!”) and Hugo Chávez (“La revolución bolivariana de Hugo Chávez”). Although they possessed different personalities, the texts, maintaining the perspective of classic political theory (Machiavelli) and Marxist theory (Marx and Gramsci, among others), analyze the political accomplishments of these leaders, illustrating how they sought to comprehend and act within the Latin American reality in differing contexts. They relate how these men exercised political leadership, combining an incisive reading of the political moment and the revolutionary transformations, and developed a symbiotic relationship with the masses and an effective combination of tactics and revolutionary strategies. Although of course they made mistakes, they maintained their commitment, even with personal sacrifices, to the revolutionary processes they led. Assessing Fidel, Boron says (700),

Fidel has died, but his legacy—like that of Che and of Chávez—will live forever. His appeal to unity, solidarity, and anti-imperialist internationalism; his defense of socialism, of Martí; his creative appropriation of Marxism and the Leninist tradition; his warning that the audacity of the peoples who wish to create a new world will inevitably be punished by the right with a brutal lashing and that to avoid such a drastic outcome it is crucial to finalize without delay the fundamental tasks of the revolution. In short, all of this constitutes an essential legacy for the future of the emancipatory struggles of our peoples.

Although this anthology is an important approximation to the thought of Atilio Boron, it does not exhaust the issues in political theory and Marxism but rather allows a provocative approach to his experience of them. Boron’s Marxism is directly related to the best of the Latin American tradition—discussing in terms of the centrality of the Revolution the momentum of contemporary capitalism and its effects on Latin America, mainly in the field of politics. On this basis, he seeks to restore the vitality, theory, and practice of Marxism, reminding us, as Sabrina González points out in the introduction, that his relevance can be linked to his offering a view of the social totality as a synthesis of multiple determinations to develop an open, complex, and not predetermined notion of history that can relate theory and practice, critique and utopia, in order to understand the current Latin American reality and its politics.

All in all, this collection allows us to identify the virtues and the limitations of the intellectual and political achievements of one of the most significant Marxist public intellectuals, combining an astute and up-to-date analysis of capitalism in Latin America with social commitment, as the introduction points out (24):

In Atilio Boron, a Marxist academic with Machiavellian-Gramscian overtones, a teacher, a researcher, a prolific writer slowly matures but is very particularly a creator of dialogue spaces with emancipatory projection among and across generations. Faithful to the Florentine, he recommends revisiting the actions of the great armed prophets who projected a vision of the Patria Grande —the Greater Homeland— Bolívar, San Martín, Artigas—considering the extensive experience of the revolutionary processes in the dialectic of history, which takes the shape of a spiral, with advances, impasses, setbacks, and new offensives but never a return to the starting point.