Fascism and Dependency in Latin America in the Thinking of Theotônio dos Santos

• Author: Maíra Machado Bichir
• Published date: 01 January 2022
• Date: 01 January 2022
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/0094582X211059153
• Subject Matter: Articles: Reflections on Historical Thought

https://doi.org/10.1177/0094582X211059153

LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES, Issue 242, Vol. 49 No. 1, January 2022, 107–122

DOI: 10.1177/0094582X211059153

© 2021 Latin American Perspectives

107

Fascism and Dependency in Latin America in the

Thinking of Theotônio dos Santos

by

Maíra Machado Bichir

Translated by

Heather Hayes

The analysis of Theotônio dos Santos, a central reference of the Marxist theory of

dependency, of the counterrevolutionary political processes in Latin America in the 1960s

and 1970s, reflecting what he observes as an advance of fascistization, proposes the con-

cept of a dependent fascism to characterize some of the military governments that materi-

alized in the region. His writings on the subject are part of a wide range of debates that

took place in Latin America during the 1970s, which focused on the context of political

radicalization between revolution and counterrevolution, a tug-of-war that led to a con-

solidation of military coups. These writings express his position on both the political crisis

that took place in Latin American countries at that time and the transformations of the

political regime and the state itself. Efforts to renew these debates are anchored in the

expectation that they may shed light on recent Latin American history.

A análise de Theotônio dos Santos, referência central da teoria Marxista da dependência,

sobre os processos políticos contrarrevolucionários na América Latina nas décadas de 1960

e 1970, ao observar um avanço da fascistização, propõe o conceito de fascismo dependente

para caracterizar alguns dos governos militares que se concretizaram na região. Seus escri-

tos sobre o tema se inscrevem em um amplo campo de debates que tiveram lugar na América

Latina durante a década de 1970, os quais se debruçavam sobre o contexto de radicalização

política entre revolução e contrarrevolução, no qual a consolidação de golpes militares

estava imersa, e expressam o posicionamento do autor em relação tanto à crise política que

teve lugar nos países latino-americanos naquele então, quanto às transformações do próprio

regime político e do Estado. O esforço de recuperar tal debate está ancorado na expectativa

de que tais reflexões possam lançar luz sobre a história recente latino-americana.

Keywords: Fascism, Dependency, Latin America, Marxist theory of dependency,

State

In the face of the recent institutional coups and electoral victories by openly

conservative proposals in Latin America,1 we find ourselves with the challenge

of interpreting, characterizing, and classifying them. This provides us with an

Maíra Machado Bichir is an adjunct professor of political science and sociology (Society, State, and

Politics in Latin America) at the Universidade Federal da Integração Latino-Americana, where she

is coordinator of the university’s Marxism and Politics Study Group. She is also a member of the

Working Group on States in Dispute of the Consejo Latinamericano de Ciencias Sociales. Her

research includes studies on Latin American thought, the state, power, politics, and dependency.

Heather Hayes is a translator in Quito, Ecuador.

1059153LAPXXX10.1177/0094582X211059153Latin American PerspectivesBichir / FASCISM AND DEPENDENCY IN DOS SANTOS

research-article2021

108 LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES

opportunity to discuss the nature of the administrations in power today and

that of the Latin American states themselves. Analysts have revived concepts

such as fascism, neo-fascism, neoconservatism, dictatorship, and restricted

democracy that marked the interpretive lexicon of political science in analyses

of Latin American countries in the 1960s and 1970s to explain the political phe-

nomena of the present day. With this in mind, in this article I revisit the ideas

proposed by Theotônio dos Santos, a central reference for the Marxist theory of

dependency, on the counterrevolutionary political processes in Latin America

in the 1960s and 1970s. Reflecting what he observes as an advance of fascistiza-

tion, he proposes the concept of a dependent fascism to characterize some of

the military governments that materialized in the region.2

Writings by Dos Santos on the subject are part of a wide range of debates that

focusing on the 1970s context of political radicalization between revolution and

counterrevolution, a tug-of-war that led to a consolidation of military coups.

While, on the one hand, there were profound differences in the characterization

of political regimes and Latin American states among theoretical currents such

as Guillermo O’Donnell’s Weberian authoritarian bureaucratic state and the

military state of the Argentine Marxist Atilio Borón, on the other hand contro-

versies have been identified among Latin American Marxists themselves, as in

the dossier “La cuestión del fascismo en América Latina” (García etal., 1978),

which included reflections by Pío García, Agustín Cueva, Ruy Mauro Marini,

and Theotônio dos Santos. In this last case, we even have a glimpse of differ-

ences in the area of the Marxist theory of dependency, since Dos Santos and

Marini disagreed—Marini using the concept of a counterinsurgent state to

explain the features that distinguished the new state form.3

Intense debate existed even among those who invoked the concept of fas-

cism. Trindade (1983) provides a map of the debate on fascism in Latin America,

tracing its origins to the 1930s and analyzing its revival in the 1970s in view of

the region’s political crises. He claims that he was largely inspired by the dis-

cussion that emerged from the publication of Nicos Poulantzas’s (1972 [1970])

Fascisme et dictature. Here three currents could be distinguished, all of them

using the concept of fascism to explain that reality (Trindade, 1983: 432):

In the first place, there is a conception that resists the transposition of the fascist

concept after its first European significance and that prefers to refer to more

general terms such as “fascistization processes” or “fascism projects”; sec-

ondly, the analysis that recovers the original idea of fascism—judging it as

having been adapted for use as an explanatory concept for the Latin America

of the 1970s, using a qualifier such as “fascism-dependent” or “atypical fas-

cism.” Third, a broader sense of the concept of fascism, dissociating it from any

characteristic conditioning of a European phenomenon and encompassing the

dynamics of Latin American social formations in its own specificity.

Considering the different analytical keys to this historical period, this article

revisits Dos Santos’s concept of dependent fascism, through which is reflected

his position in relation to both the political crisis that took place in Latin

American countries and the transformations of the state itself. Efforts to renew

these debates are anchored primarily in the expectation that they may shed

light on Latin America’s recent history.