MARXISM IN LATIN AMERICA

For all of its thunder, the fifty year history of the Communist movement hasn't achieved sizable results in Latin America. Severe repression, abrupt changes of the Party line, difficulties in communication and a largely apolitical peasantry help to account for its relatively poor showing. Reportage and analysis of Communist activity in the area have up to now depended upon Rollie Poppino's unsatisfactory International Communism in Latin America and Robert J. Alexander's more useful if narrower Communism in Latin America. While inevitably suffering from a lack of cohesiveness, Aguilar's collection of primary documents and commentaries obtained from Party sources as well as furnished by ex-Communists and Trotskyites, brings together material that was either unavailable or somewhat inaccessible. Two of the book's most valuable contributions are supplied by Peru's almost legendary Communist leader Jose Carlos Mariategui in his ""Yankeeland and Marxism,"" and Chile's important intellectual leader Luis Emilio Recabarren's ""The Dawn of Social Revolution in Chile."" Far ranging and pertinent to the various crises that the Marxist parties throughout the region are now experiencing, the book will be part of any basic Latin American collection.