The Resurrection of José Carlos Mariátegui
Mike Gonzalez, In the Red Corner: The Marxism of José Carlos Mariátegui.
Haymarket Books, 2019.
248 pages, $19.00 paperback.
The last couple of years have seen an increased interest in the life and work of the Peruvian Marxist José Carlos Mariátegui. Several left publications in the United States [1,2,3,4] have introduced readers to this original thinker and even the Economist [5] featured a sympathetic but characteristically bourgeois profile on the revolutionary. The global relevance of Mariátegui and his contributions to the art world were also featured last year in an exquisitely curated exhibition that travelled to Madrid, Spain, Lima, Peru, Austin, Texas, and Mexico City–which I was able to view firsthand [6].
This newfound interest in Mariátegui is a welcomed development, since this thinker hasn’t always enjoyed such popularity outside of Peru, the academy, or latinamericanist Marxist circles. However, translations of some of Mariategui’s key works have been available in the US since the 1970s. In 2011, Monthly Review Press published a lengthy anthology edited by Harry E. Vanden and Marc Becker that is bound to become a reference text for Mariátegui studies. [7] Nevertheless, the work of this pioneering Marxist is being slowly embraced, and he is rapidly gaining a following in the English-speaking world.
Within this context, the new biography by Mike Gonzalez, titled In the Red Corner: The Marxism of José Carlos Mariátegui, is a valuable addition and an invaluable introduction to the life and work of the Peruvian Marxist. Gonzalez is an emeritus professor of Latin American Studies at the University of Glasgow, he has been a member of the Socialist Worker Party in the UK, and he has written extensively on the Marxist traditions of Latin America. In this accessible introduction, Gonzalez brings this experience to his work and he successfully makes the case that Mariátegui was an original and creative Marxist whose contributions enriched the Marxist tradition while stressing that Mariátegui was not just a theorist, but “a man of action, an activist, an organizer, and a revolutionist” (12).
“un marxista convicto y confeso”
The book consists of ten chapters, each covering a period of his life or a key political work. In the first chapters, we learn of Mariátegui’s upbringing a humble household and a tragic accident that accident that afflicted him his whole life. Homebound, he is unable to finish his studies but turns to reading and develops a voracious appetite for literature. At age fifteen, he begins work as a printer’s apprentice and will eventually write for several newspapers and magazines, where he develops his political, literary and analytic talents.
In ensuing years, Mariátegui became part of Lima’s bohemian avant-garde; but unlike those who stuck to the arts, he also got involved in the student movement, labor struggles and anarcho-syndicalist politics. Although José Carlos embraced socialist politics, especially as news of the Russian Revolution of 1917 reached Lima, it isn’t until his trip to Europe (1919-1923) that Mariátegui became a convinced and committed Marxist—”un marxista convicto y confeso.“
In 1919, a newspaper started by Mariátegui was shut down by the authorities and he was exiled to Europe. In his travels, he reached Italy right as the country became gripped by a series of strikes and factory occupations during the Biennio Rosso. His years in Italy left an deep impression. He immersed himself In a study of revolutionary theory and politics, voraciously consuming the works of Marx, Lenin and the writings of the French philosopher Georges Sorel.
Equally important was his contact with Antonio Gramsci’s circle around the newspaper Ordine Nuovo, and his exposure to the debates inside the Italian Socialist Party (PSI) and the Communist International. These centered around the intervention of socialists in the factory occupations and the missed opportunity for a worker-peasant united front, which eventually led to a split and the creation of the Communist Party of Italy. During his time in Italy he also witnessed the rise of fascism and later wrote a perceptive analysis of the phenomenon in his first book The Contemporary Scene. Upon his return to Lima in 1923, he developed the themes explored in his book as a series of seminal lectures titled “History of the World Crisis” which he delivered at the Universidad Popular.
Gonzalez chronicles the return of Mariátegui to Peru and his immersion in national politics and local struggles. José Carlos distances himself from anarchism and develops an explicitly socialist line for Peru which often brings him in conflict with Victor Raúl Haya de la Torre, an important labor leader with political ambitions. Though Haya de la Torre and Mariátegui had been close collaborators, they disagreed on the role of imperialism in Latin America and the question of the need for an independent working-class party. For his part, Mariátegui wrote and organized at a frenetic pace despite–or perhaps because of–his illness.
Amauta
In 1926, he founded Minerva publishers and the cultural and political magazine ”Amauta”—Quechua for master or wise one—along with another workers’ newspaper called Labor. His house in the “Washington Izquierda” district of Lima became a hub of political activity and an organizing center for the growing labor movement in the mines and the textile factories. Through Labor he brought together correspondents and unionists that organized workers' reading circles, and eventually organized a Miner’s Congress in 1928.
Meanwhile, through Amauta, José Carlos developed a network of writers, artists, poets and intellectuals who he hoped would become a cultural vanguard connected to the worker’s movement. Amauta was a pioneering magazine that brought together Peruvian notable poets and artists like Martín Adan, César Vallejo, and José Sabogal. Through this initiative José Carlos also sought to engage indigenous politics with a special bulletin targeted at indigenous and pro-indigenous groups. Through the work of Julia Codesido and José Sabogal, the magazine established a modernist, graphic interpretation of indigenismo that influenced Latin American art for the next century. As the magazine gained a following and a profile in Latin America it also published, reproduced, and engaged the work of luminaries such as Pablo Neruda, Jorge Luis Borges, Gabriela Mistral, Emlio Petorruti, Diego Rivera, and Tina Modotti. It’s open and tolerant editorial line made Amauta the home for debates on politics, education, indigenismo, modernism, futurism and surrealism.
In 1928, Mariátegui published his landmark work Seven Interpretive Essays on Peruvian Reality, which deploys Marx’s method to analyze the social, political and cultural development of Peru. Reflecting on this method, José Carlos argues that “Marx pulled his method from the very guts of history” and this provided the foundation of Mariátegui’s Marxism, which George Ciccariello-Maher aptly describes as a “decolonized dialectics” based on a concrete analysis of local conditions and class relations [8].
Among other topics like the united front, the question of the party, and the vanguard, Mike Gonzalez discusses the essays in detail and offers insights into the communistic traditions and notions of territory that persisted among indigenous populations and which Mariátegui believed could be part of the basis for socialism. Nevertheless, these creative efforts that strategize for a specifically Indo-American socialism are dismissed as “nationalist” by the then Stalinized Comintern. In his last years, Mariátegui defended his political strategy for Peru—and his Marxism—against the line set from Moscow.
Overall, Mike Gonzalez is successful in conveying the independence, originality and creativity of Mariátegui as a Marxist thinker. The development of concepts like religiosity, revolutionary myth, territory, and ideology form the basis of Mariátegui’s mystical Marxism, which have indeed enriched the tradition. Widespread engagement with his work in dependency theory, decolonial studies, liberation theology and indigenous studies prove as much. For readers new to the oeuvre of the Peruvian Marxist, this book is an accessible introduction that will provide the foundation for a deeper engagement with the thought of José Carlos Mariátegui and the persisting relevance of the teachings of Amauta.
Héctor A. Rivera is a queer, Mexican-American, socialist educator. He writes about geography, history and contemporary politics in Latin America. He lives in Los Ángeles, Califaztlán.
