Jose Carlos Mariategui and Twenty-first-Century Socialism: Recovery and Renewal

As Latin America entered the turn to the left, there was a recovery and renewal of the work of Jose Carlos Mariategui. The "practical socialism" that he advocated and led in the course of a short but brilliant political career (basically, the 1920s) has much to teach us today if set in its proper historical context and not reduced to catchphrases. Mariategui was, arguably, the first Marxist in Latin America, and his open, imaginative, transgressive, and energizing writings may well illuminate our paths in the 2020s. His was not a Marxist catechism but a living Marxism. What we can take from Mariategui is a grounded Marxism-devoid of all theoreticisms-that, understood in its historical context, may point toward a period of renewal after the seeming collapse of the left project to build a twenty-first-century socialism. A medida que America Latina dio un giro izquierdista se produjo una recuperacion y renovacion de la obra de Jose Carlos Mariategui. El "socialismo practico" que el defendio y dirigio durante su corta pero brillante carrera politica (basicamente, la decada de 1920) tiene mucho que ensenarnos hoy si se mira en su contexto historico adecuado y no se reduce a frases hechas. Mariategui fue, posiblemente, el primer marxista latinoamericano y sus escritos abiertos, imaginativos, transgresores y llenos de energia bien pueden iluminar nuestro camino en la decada de 2020. El suyo no era un catecismo marxista sino un marxismo vivo. Lo que podemos tomar de Mariategui es un marxismo fundamentado, desprovisto de todo teoricismo que, entendido en su contexto historico, puede apuntar hacia un periodo de renovacion despues del aparente colapso del proyecto de izquierda para construir un socialismo del siglo XXI.