Mariategui and the building of a Latin american socialism

This paper analyzes the main aspects of Mariategui's socialist conception, emphasizing his historicist and voluntarist approaches against the economism and determinism prevailing in the marxist tradition, as well as his reformulation of historical materialism as a method of interpretation not only of the developed capitalist societies, but also of colonial societies in which capitalism is combined with surviving elements of previous social formations. We also deal with Mariategui's understanding of political party as articulation form of the subaltern classes, which should emerge from the shaping process of a collective will between them. Finally we consider how he introduces the question of indigenism into his socialist conception in order to outline a form of transition to a specifically Latin American socialism.