The Trajectory of Ideals in the Revolutionary Processes of Latin America

1 Introduction

The history of Latin America has been interwoven with social change and revolutionary convulsions with a diverse range of articulated demands. Not least because of the turbulent social developments witnessed since the nineteenth century, the Latin American region has been considered a “social laboratory” or “the most critical region in the world” (Humphrey, 1964, pp. 585–601). Numerous social upheavals and revolutionary initiatives have served as proof of the relevance of similar claims. These social changes have represented ideals arising from specific historical and social conditions. Revolutionary ideals have played an important part in the Latin American region,^[1] instigating revolutionary tensions as evidenced by the emphasis on the revolutionary ideal as one of the driving forces of social change in Latin American political philosophy. Thus, the study aims to grasp and explicate the development of these revolutionary ideals through a historical-philosophical analysis of the conceptual basis of social movements in the Latin American region set in a broader context of current social processes in Latin America. The study is devoted to (1.) an analysis of the basic features of the Latin American ideal of independence, the content of which was an emphasis on unity, racial and social equality; (2.) an analysis of the demand for a socialist society understood in Latin American terms as a regionally authentic project. The ideas of past epochs are reflected today in the current social-transformation processes in Latin America that we have been following since the end of the 20th century. The original contribution of the present study is to draw attention to the contexts captured in the continuity of historical developments under the influence of which contemporary transformative processes have been shaped in order to understand the broader context of the emergence of the need for social change in Latin American provenance as well as in relation to current social challenges discussing social change and innovation on a global scale.

2 The Ideology of Independence in Latin American Social and Political Contexts

When tracing the evolution of revolutionary ideals, one can detect the first revolts and revolutionary initiatives in Latin America associated with the opposition to Spanish colonial dominance. From the start, particularly in view of the later social developments, the key ideal was the ideal of independence. In the nineteenth century, it mainly embodied the demand for political liberation from under Spanish colonial rule formulated in the claim to sovereign state formation. The demands for autonomy in individual countries were voiced diversely in terms of the time of their articulation and also their content. Yet, the emphasis on unity became a crucial and also a common feature of the Latin American ideal of independence; this aspect has been salient on multiple levels.

The main ambition was to achieve the unity of Hispanic America in terms of the regional cohesion of the geographical area. The first mention of the Latin American commonwealth dates back to 1810, when a revolutionary patriotic junta in Venezuela appealed to all Spanish colonies in America, calling for “contribution to the great cause of the creation of the Spanish-American Confederation” (Villanueva, 1969, p. 112). The most articulate was the ideal of a single America in Simon Bolivar’s concept of creating a federation of Latin American countries, Gran (Greater) Colombia, which was to include today’s Venezuela, Colombia, Panama, Ecuador, northern Peru, western Guyana and Brazil. Bolívar emphasized that “the consolidation of the New World into a single nation is a great idea. Our countries have one and the same language, one and the same morale and religion, and they must form a confederation” (Bolívar, 1951, p. 104). Greater Colombia actually came into existence at the Angostura Congress in 1819. In accordance with the intentions of political unity, efforts were also made to form a collective defence and trade community. The wide range of ambitions included the organization of common defence, creating a unified regular army and navy; the peaceful settlement of territorial disputes; guarantees of territorial integrity; the abolition of the slave trade and the organization of regular conferences aimed at resolving emerging problems (Silva Otero, 1976, p. 17). Eventually, however, none of these Pan American Congress agreements were ratified by the participating states, and the Latin American Congress did not adopt Bolivar’s specific plan to create a wider Pan-American federation (Helg, 2012). In 1829 and 1830, Colombia and Ecuador broke away from Greater Colombia, and, despite later efforts, a federation of states failed to materialize. In the years 1847–1848, 1856 and 1864, other international conferences were held in Lima and Santiago, which vainly attempted to outline a specific programme of joint action and establish mutual contractual obligations for foreign policy cooperation among Latin American countries.

To counter this claim, one could mention the creation of the Pan-American Union, which tends to be dubbed the bearer of ideals as it concerns the political cohesion of Latin American countries. However, the historical circumstances of its establishment do not suggest any attempts to interpret pan-Americanism as institutionalized in the later Organization of American States (OAS). Between 1889 and 1890, on the initiative of James Blain (also nicknamed the ‘American Bismarck’), the first international American conference was held in Washington, which founded the Pan-American Union (International Union of American Republics). The aim of the North American delegation was to promote a single customs union, a single currency and the establishment of an international arbitration body (Marichal, 2002, p. 121). Although the plan failed, the Washington-based Commercial Office of the American Republics came into being, which was tasked with collecting, sorting and releasing statistics on industry and trade in the American republics via regular brochures. The institutional organization of the office as the first cell of the Pan-American Union^[2] and its development testify to the nature of its goals, which became the target of criticism, especially in the latter half of the twentieth century. On these foundations, under the influence of specific historical circumstances (World War II, the gradual trade expansion of the United States into Latin America), the military-political grouping the Rio Treaty (1947) and its political counterpart the Organization of American States (1948) were formed. Pan-Americanism, which came out of the conference held in Washington in the late nineteenth century, failed to epitomize Latin American unity, the Bolivarian concept; instead, it became synonymous with neocolonial oppression, which had already been anticipated in the writings and records of the conference participants (Saladino García, 2009, p. 358).

The emphasis on unity as a revolutionary ideal was also strongly represented in political philosophy. Its most distinctive example was the concept of “our America”, developed by José Martí. Martí was concerned with the issues of Latin American identity; his ambition was to create a basis for shaping the future characterized by the strength of Latin American countries, which could only be guaranteed by unity (López Civeira, 2019, p. 59). He re-emphasized this aspect while also creating the reference frame for reasoning within a common Latin American context. In 1883, he wrote, “All our desire is to put soul to soul, hand to hand the nations of our Latin America. We see colossal dangers; we see an easy and brilliant way to avoid them; we guess in the new adaptation of the national forces of the world, always in motion, and now accelerated, the necessary and majestic grouping of all the members of the American national family” (Martí, 2002, p. 325). The demand for unity as an essential attribute of the struggle for independence, rather than being confined to a national (Cuban) space, was conceived of by Martí on an international (Latin American) scale. Towards the end of the nineteenth century, this condition was no longer crucial for achieving independence from Spain but for defending Hispanic America against a new form of colonization. In 1895, in a letter to Manuel Mercado, he wrote, “I understand it and have the spirit to carry it out—in order to prevent, by the timely independence of Cuba, the United States from extending its hold across the Antilles and falling with all the greater force on the lands of our America” (Martí, 2005, p. 38). Following his participation in the international American conference in Washington, Martí cautioned against the tendencies that manifested themselves clearly late in the nineteenth century, which increasingly became a breeding ground for criticism demanding independence guaranteed by a change in the social and economic organization.

Martí’s grasp of unity, in addition to the political aspect, emphasized the philosophical and ethical elements, bringing to the fore the demand for the unification of the peoples of Latin America across cultural differences in order to achieve social equality. In this sense, one can speak of the demand for equality. As a result of colonialism, indigenous ethnic groups and nations were culturally and economically kept on the margins of society. In parallel with the demands for independence, the ideal of equality—racial, ethnic and social—appeared in Latin American revolutionary thought. In the bourgeois-liberal tradition, Martí voiced claims to racial and ethnic equality by explicitly writing that “there is no racial hatred because there is no race […]. Those who support and promote opposition and racial hatred sin against humanity” (Martí, 2005, p. 38). Liberation from under the colonial yoke was to bring social equality to the racially diverse population, as evidenced by the writings of Simon Rodriguez, in which the ideal of independence is inextricably bound with the social stake: “There is no free country with inequality of rights, nor prosperity where there are millions of poor. There is no freedom where there are masters, nor prosperity where prosperity depends on social happiness” (Rodríguez, 1975, p. 178). The new political form was to guarantee the equality and unity of the population, to remove the old inequalities cultivated by colonialism. Alongside equality within Latin American societies, one must add that the same demand was also voiced regarding the right to respect and to recognize Hispanic America, that is, against treating these nations, culturally different from Europe or North America, as inferior or as of a lesser value.

In line with the tradition of the ideals of independence in terms of cultural equality and recognition, a massive theoretical and cultural indigenismo movement that prevailed in Latin America (especially in Peru) emerged in the early twentieth century. The aim of the movement was to assimilate Indians into civilization while preserving their culture. Indigenismo became a central issue in the Peruvian intellectual community of the time, and its ideas spread throughout Latin America (Liss, 1984, p. 127). The emphasis on original cultural resources stemmed from specific social conditions but also from the search for an authentic Latin American identity.

The underlying goal of the revolutionary ideals in the nineteenth century was the constitution of an independent, nationally sovereign bourgeois republic. The demands and ideals voiced in order to achieve their purpose in the given specific historical setting did not disappear even in the twentieth century, becoming an integral part of a new wave of revolutionary tension in the region.

3 Socialism as an Authentic Latin American Project

The struggle for independence brought about the constitution of new republics, but, despite the expectations, the countries of Latin America gradually found themselves once again in a dependent position. Theoretical works convey a reiterated view defining new features of dependence—dependence on the United States—which took root in the region under the guise of formal independence. Its economic attributes were demonstrated in the unilateral trade orientation towards the United States, in the operation of North American monopolies in the region, in the exploitation of natural resources by the United States. Politically, this period was characterized by a system of domination referred to as caudilloism, which existed in the president’s decisive power and almost unlimited rights. “American monopolies removed some dictators while appointing new ones. The latter then acceded to agreements which had, for many years, had a decisive impact on the development of individual states, without the legislature, or some kind of national supervisory institution or political institution being able to preclude these steps” (Kerekes, 1975, p. 92).

Under these specific historical circumstances, the notion of imperialism, specifically North American imperialism, was becoming more and more pronounced. The ideal of independence did not lose its relevance but was changing in nature. Demands to disengage from US domination (albeit informal) were increasingly articulated in the 1950s when national liberation movements were asserting themselves with a still greater force. At the same time, Marxist interpretations of social reality were gaining ground with labourers organizing mass strikes; Latin America’s increasing revolutionary tension in the late-1950s was especially associated with the ideology of anti-imperialism, which, in the twentieth century, called for independence from North American interference and exploitation of the Latin American countries. The ambition of gaining autonomy for the countries of Latin America is still present in a wide range of the political programmes of individual parties. The revolutionary convulsions in Latin America in the 1950s subscribed to the ideal of independence, as exemplified by the nature of the Cuban Revolution, which referred to, and followed on from, Martí’s unfinished struggle for the island’s independence. The diversity in the membership of the 26th of July Movement prevented it from developing as a socialist project from the very start. Socialism was merely the result of this struggle, arising from practical experience, from the specific historical course of events (a bipolar division of the world, economic isolation of Cuba by the United States, the Bay of Pigs Invasion, etc.). The socialist essence of calls for independence of the Latin American countries was theoretically underpinned by the work of Ernesto Guevara, who openly described efforts at national sovereignty, which ran against the socialist concept, as incapable of opposing North American imperialism. This, as he added, was also a factor that decided the nature of any revolutionary process. In his words, the national liberation revolution could either be a socialist revolution or a mere caricature of the revolution (Guevara, 2019, p. 158).

In the 1960s, one of the strong critics of Latin American desarollism, a movement fostering the development of capitalism and promoting mainly national ideals, Andre Gunder Frank came up with a similar view, largely based on an analysis of the economic conditions in the countries of Latin America. Frank refused to blame the backwardness of the Latin American region on colonialist oppression by Spain, which was then the dominant ideological rationale for the region’s underdevelopment. In his words, the underdevelopment of Latin America was a consequence of capitalism. The inconsistent historical evolution of capitalism did not facilitate the advancement of peripheral territories, that is, vassal states, whose economic surpluses were appropriated by the mother country, only contributing to the growth of the major centres in the mother country (Frank, 1970a, p. 27). In this particular case, the dependence of Latin American countries was not merely an “external category”, but was also “intrinsic” in nature, with the Latin American bourgeoisie depending on the foreign capital. On these grounds, Frank rather doubted the existence of a “national bourgeoisie” in Latin American countries. The logical consequence of his reference frame was his rejection of “national solutions”. He pointed out that while economic and social change modified the form of dependency, it also created even more dependent relations; as a result, Latin America found itself under increasing subordination (Frank, 1970b, pp. 7, 8). From this assessment, he concluded that the underdevelopment and backwardness of Latin America would last until the people of these countries freed themselves from capitalism (Frank, 1970a, p. 27).

The ideals of socialism that began to take shape in Latin America reflect the former legacy of the continent’s revolutionary tradition, as well as the social and historical peculiarities of these countries. Interpretations of the nature of socialism in Latin America emphasize the demand for an authentic socialist society, which is to mirror the face of Latin American nations. Thus, there is a strong claim for equality among the population and for the integration of marginalized groups (especially Indians). Socialism is supposed to be an act of the masses, and so, having realized the marginalization of the Latin American population, Marxist authors not only attempt to mobilize these population groups for imaginary revolutionary barricades, but seek their emancipation—intellectual, cultural and political. This emphasis can be identified in the theoretical and practical works of José Carlos Mariátegui, José Antonio Arce (Bolivia), Héctor Pablo Agosti (Argentina), Jorge Elíecer Gaitán (Colombia) and others. What is more, Marxist authors often focus on the interpretation of Latin American history from pre-Columbian times through the methodology of dialectical materialism.

In doing so, they view socialism as an authentic American project. Mariátegui pointed out, “We certainly do not want socialism in America to be an imitation. It must be a heroic creation. We must vivify it with our own reality, our own language, we will create Indo-American socialism. That is the dignified task for the new generation” (Mariátegui, 1969, p. 248). In this spirit, Marxism has been seen as a dialectical means of revolutionary transformation. “It is not a set of principles of strictly identical consequences for all historical environments and all social conditions. In every country, in every nation, Marxism operates and acts in relation to the context, without neglecting any of the modalities” (Mariátegui, 1969, pp. 111, 112). Marxism is regarded as a “philosophy of a transformational act” or as a “philosophy of praxis”, which leads to a new social reality, expressed not only in economic terms but also in new cultural and political forms (Agosti, 1945, p. 77).

This corresponds to the Marxist tradition developing in Europe, with Latin American authors applying the basic categories of dialectical and historical materialism to explicate historical developments in Latin America, not infrequently returning to the epoch of the struggles for independence. A Marxist class vision of social relations allows them to see this epoch as unfinished and unfulfilled. It allows them to explain the social contradictions of capitalist societies in historical contexts and actual perspectives and to direct their attention to their elimination in terms of the demand for the abolition of private ownership of the means of production. The realization of socialist societies in the second half of the 20th century was not primary the outcome of theoretical analyses. Socialist societies became socialist gradually, after the social change driven by the ideals of independence and national liberation, through the adoption of reforms that were introduced in some states in order to achieve practical independence (economic, political, security, cultural, etc.).

The ideal of socialism in the region was reinforced by the lasting victory of the Cuban Revolution (1959). Over the latter half of the twentieth century, the attitude of individual countries to Cuba defined Latin American international policy. The Cuban Revolution served as an inspiration for many countries and (many) national liberation movements in Latin America, especially following the publication of Ernesto Guevara’s article on the strategy of guerrilla war, regarded by himself as applicable anywhere in Latin America (Guevara, 1963, p. 12). Revolutionary coups took place in Nicaragua (1979), in Grenada (1980), tensions were sparked by guerrillas in El Salvador, Colombia and Bolivia. However, in addition to the revolutionary process of social transformation, there was a demand in the Latin American region for a non-violent change of the social and economic order. The above tendencies manifested themselves both in theory and in political praxis in Chile, where Salvador Allende Gosens, the candidate of the People’s Union, took office by winning the elections of 1970. Allende strove to promote the project of socialism in a non-violent way (Guardiola-Rivera, 2014, p. 200). His efforts were thwarted by brutal violence in 1973 when Augusto Pinochet’s military junta seized power in an armed coup. The armed coup in Chile was the result of several years of destabilising activities by the US imperialist oligarchy, and was ultimately organised and supported by the CIA (Guardiola-Rivera, 2014; Winn, 2010). The Chilean experience is thus one of several in the region that demonstrate the limits of Latin American states to extricate themselves from US power subjugation.

Numerous military interventions, local warfare and changes in the geopolitical arena kept raising questions as to the implementation strategies of social change. The most prominent in the twentieth century was the ideal of socialism, no longer seen as a demand for change of governance, as was the case in the nineteenth century when revolutionaries fought for the political formation of the bourgeois republic and for the end of monarchy, but as a demand for change in the social nature of governance, that is, of the social and economic order. This ideal embodied the understanding of socialism as an authentic Latin American project while incorporating the central ideological concepts of the nineteenth-century revolutionary processes—independence, unity and equality.

4 The Ideals of Social Change in the Current Transformational Processes in Latin America

The trajectory of revolutionary ideals in Latin America from independence to socialism, that is, of rising revolutionary demands in Latin America, is also noticeable in the current social processes of the region. To this day, the different forms of social transformation have aimed at independence, equality of the citizenry expressed in anti-racism and social justice, and the building of a socialist society understood in the spirit of the authentic cultural identity of the Latin American region.

Independence and sovereignty fostered by the unity of the countries of Latin America appeared in the political efforts of these countries, especially in the latter half of the twentieth century. While such efforts did not strive to create a political confederation, independence was to be guaranteed through liberation from US economic influence via the creation of business associations aimed at mutual exchange and economic assistance. In this sense, one could mention a number of initiatives. In 1951, Argentinian president Juan Domingo Perón initiated the ABC Pact (Argentina–Brazil–Chile). 1960 saw the foundation of ALALC/LAFTA (Asociación Latinoamericana de Libre comercio; the Latin American Free Trade Association), CAN (Comunidad Andina de Naciones; the Andean Community) came into being in 1969, CARICOM (La Comunidad del Caribe; the Caribbean Community) was established in 1973 and SELA (Sistema Económico Latinoamericano) in 1975. In 1980, a treaty was signed in Montevideo, giving rise to ALADI (Asociación Latinoamericana de integración; the Latin American Integration Association), Mercosur (El Mercado Común del Sur; the Southern Common Market) was established in 1991, to name but a few. Similar efforts led to the establishment of ALBA (Alianza Bolivariana para los Pueblos de Nuestra América; Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America) in 2004, whose aim was to create an economic, political and social bloc associating Latin American and Caribbean countries based on participation, solidarity, equality, mutual development and respect for the sovereignty and self-determination of nations for the purpose of human, social, political and economic development. These activities resulted in the creation of Unasur (Unión de Naciones Sudamericanas; the Union of South American Nations) in 2008 and CELAC (Comunidad de Estados Latinoamericanos y Caribeños; the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States) in 2011.

As in past centuries, notions of revolution and socialism have not disappeared from the political parlance. The concept of socialism with an emphasis on the original and authentic Latin American project has several attributes—the “Socialism of the 21st Century” project was implemented in Venezuela, while “Socialism of Good Living” was introduced in Ecuador. From an ideological perspective, these initiatives and their corresponding labels emphasize detachment from the Soviet interpretation of socialism and, at the same time, respond to the social situation in the region following the defeat of the USSR in the Cold War. As early as the end of the 1980s, the policy of the state leadership in the USSR contributed to the economic crisis the revolutionary governments (Nicaragua, Cuba) experienced, which deepened after the demise of the USSR. In the late-1980s, and especially in the 1990s, neoliberal transformation processes characterized by the application of the principles of the Washington Consensus came to the fore. In the wake of the consequences of neoliberalism in Latin America, Hugo Chávez made his speech in Venezuela in 1998. Venezuela subscribed to the Bolivarian legacy of an independent Latin America, emphasizing unity in practice, particularly epitomized by the launch of ALBA, which had been originally established as a mutual aid agreement between Cuba and Venezuela. The government’s programme worked with the concept of socialism, seen as a Latin American project, which was to be implemented through gradual reforms. In terms of the strategy applied and the extent of the changes, the implementation of “Socialism of the 21st century” is qualitatively different from the social changes striving for socialism in the twentieth century. There is also a special term in use: since the late twentieth century, the left-wing government trend in Latin America has been commonly referred to as the marea rosa (pink tide), suggesting the nature of government programmes and introduced changes, which are social-democratic rather than socialist, unlike the revolutionary changes of the twentieth century (Gold & Zagato, 2020). This difference is also described by the term “socialist transformation”. Admittedly, this difference cannot be explained outside the geopolitical context of the emergence and implementation of the social change.

Apart from the “Bolivarian Revolution” in Venezuela, we can trace similar efforts in Ecuador during the reign of Rafael Correa in the first decades of the 21st century. The government programme pushed for “The Socialism of Good Living”, referred to by the Indian term Sumak Kawsay, representing the Indian concept of well-being (Plan Nacional para el Buen Vivir, 2013). It focused on the social and ecological aspects. As the name and the concept of Correa’s government programme suggest, it was the continuation of the demand for racial and ethnic unity and equality, the rejection of racial superiority and imported cultural patterns, with an emphasis on the socialist project as a creative act arising from the particular social circumstances in Latin America.

The election of Bolivian politician and activist Evo Morales as the first-ever president of a Latin American country with Indian origins in 2005 has been yet another example of similar ambitions (Nelson, 2019, p. 56). Although the “pink tide” waned in the 2010s, the election of Luis Arce in Bolivia following the government coup in 2019, the left-wing government of Manuel Andrés López Obrador in Mexico, the re-election of Daniel Ortega as Nicaraguan president, the election of Gabriel Boric as Chilean president, the election of Gustavo Petro as Colombian president and the election of Ignacio Lula da Silva as Brazilian president are all signals of the unceasing efforts that implicitly or explicitly espouse the ideal of independence and sovereignty of Latin American countries characterized by anti-imperialism, the unity of Latin American countries in economic cooperation and, in some cases, underpinned by the ideal of a socialist society with strong elements of Latin American indigenous peoples’ cultural identity. The term “socialist” in its political content is equivalent to social-democratic efforts. There is no demand for a radical change of the social and economic order through the abolition of private ownership of the means of production in the Marxist sense, just as there is no demand for the takeover of political power by revolutionary means. The most acceptable path to building “socialism” in the given context is that of electoral victory. The current processes, albeit referred to as revolutionary, cannot be regarded as revolutions in terms of changing the socio-economic order or of their being seen as distinct from capitalism, but rather represent a rejection of the neoliberal model of capitalism without the implication of abandoning the capitalist platform (Dinuš, 2014, pp. 126–127). Compared to the ambitions of social change in the twentieth century, current trends in raising the demands for social change can be criticized for ultimately accepting and favouring market principles while reducing progress to mere social assistance instead of combating the structural roots of inequality and the very foundations of human exploitation.

5 Conclusion

On Latin America’s revolutionary path from independence to socialism, its ideal of independence emerged in parallel with political efforts to break free from the colonial system of the countries under Spanish rule. It was symptomatic throughout the nineteenth century, and, in this regard, it was distinguished by its emphasis on unity and equality. The core feature of Latin American independence was the demand for unity, which, in our view, can be interpreted as (1) an ambition to create a unified political whole and (2) cohesion of the Latin American population across racial and ethnic differences. The latter interpretation incorporates the right to social equality between the racially and ethnically diverse populations of Latin America. The ideal of equality has also manifested itself in the relationship between Latin American culture and other cultures in terms of their mutual respect and recognition.

The ideal of independence with its defining features did not disappear from Latin American revolutionary efforts but was incorporated into the demand for a change in the socio-economic order. In the twentieth century, the independence of Latin American countries was guaranteed by overcoming the capitalist social order and establishing socialism, where socialism was regarded as an authentic project, carried out in the specific conditions of Latin America with its specific forms and unique cultural features. The ideal of socialism in the twentieth century embodied the still-current revolutionary demands of past epochs—independence, unity, equality. These ideals persist in the 21st century, turning into a driving force of political transformations enacted by the left-wing governments of some Latin American countries (Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, etc.). Their character in the light of the past traditions raises questions as to whether they have remained revolutionary or whether they are a mere expression of declining revolutionary efforts in the region. Undoubtedly, they are a challenge when searching for answers to the direction of Latin America this century, also involving the question of whether the indigenous contents of social endeavours, shaped by the confrontation of global interactions with the local specificities of Latin American societies, may be overcome.