Mariátegui and the Search for the Latin American Proletariat

• Author: Félix Pablo Friggeri
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/0094582X221105223
• Published date: 01 July 2022
• Date: 01 July 2022
• Subject Matter: Articles: Maríategui

https://doi.org/10.1177/0094582X221105223

LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES, Issue 245, Vol. 49 No. 4, July 2022, 45–61

DOI: 10.1177/0094582X221105223

© 2022 Latin American Perspectives

45

Mariátegui and the Search for the

Latin American Proletariat

by

Félix Pablo Friggeri

Translated by

Mariana Ortega-Breña

José Carlos Mariátegui’s “heroic creation” of Indo-American socialism had both polit-

ical and epistemic dimensions and involved a rethinking of the revolutionary subject—the

proletariat—in Latin America. This proletariat was, from Mariátegui’s perspective, an

articulated subject centered on the indigenous. Consideration of Mariátegui’s work from

a perspective that subverts the view of the historical/structural heterogeneity of Latin

America and seeks a bridge among the region’s revolutionary currents in popular praxis

may contribute to deepening the study of its potential for enriching the political and epis-

temological alternatives to the neoliberal project.

La “creación heroica” del socialismo indoamericano de José Carlos Mariátegui tuvo

dimensiones tanto políticas como epistémicas e implicó un replanteamiento del sujeto

revolucionario—el proletariado—en América Latina. Este proletariado era, desde la per-

spectiva de Mariátegui, un sujeto articulado centrado en lo indígena. La consideración de

la obra de Mariátegui desde una perspectiva que subvierta la visión de la heterogeneidad

histórico-estructural de América Latina y busque un puente entre las corrientes revolu-

cionarias de la región en la praxis popular puede contribuir a profundizar el estudio de su

potencial de enriquecer las alternativas políticas y epistemológicas al proyecto neoliberal.

Keywords: Mariátegui, Popular praxis, Indo-American socialism, Political-epistemic

dimension, Proletariat

This article is grounded in the conviction that the arguments of José Carlos

Mariátegui have powerful contemporary relevance for both political practice

and knowledge creation emanating from Latin America. His rich contribution

to the understanding of Latin American reality allows us to reconsider popular

alternatives, politically as well as epistemologically, in a region currently

described as “disputed territory.” I address some of the central topics in

Mariátegui’s oeuvre in three sections. The first involves the political-epistemic

dimension of his “heroic creation” of Indo-American socialism, the second his

search for the revolutionary subject in Latin America, and the third his contri-

butions as an amauta1 to the articulation of revolutionary currents based on

Félix Pablo Friggeri is an associate professor of international relations and integration, coordina-

tor of the Master’s program on contemporary Latin American integration, and local coordinator

of the interinstitutional doctorate in international relations at the Universidad Federal de la

Integración Latinoamericana in Foz do Iguaçu, Brazil. Mariana Ortega-Breña is a freelance trans-

lator based in Mexico City.

1105223LAPXXX10.1177/0094582X221105223Friggeri/MARIÁTEGUI AND THE LATIN AMERICAN PROLETARIAT

research-article2022

46 LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES

popular praxis and focused on the indigenous. Mariátegui offers a creative and

original take on the proletariat as a historical subject of Indo-American social-

ism, rooting it in indigenous reality. My conclusions address the ongoing

importance of Mariátegui’s legacy for the current construction of alternatives

to capitalism and of its historical subject.

My work is based on Mariátegui’s writings and those of several of his schol-

ars. I have chosen these texts for their relevance to contemporary Latin American

reality, but this has not resulted in sidelining the thematic emphasis placed on

them by Mariátegui himself. The absence of contradictions between the two

shows, I think, the depth of his vision when it came to identifying the structural

issues of regional reality.

PoPular Praxis as the Basis for Coordination

in latin ameriCa

the PolitiCal dimension

In an emblematic paragraph, Mariátegui presented a challenge of remarka-

ble relevance that summarized his political philosophy (Mariátegui, 2011e: 130,

quoted by Löwy, 2007: 28): “We certainly do not want socialism in Latin America

to be a copy or imitation. It should be a heroic creation. We have to give life to

Indo-American socialism with our own reality, in our own language. Here is a

mission worthy of a new generation.” Bypassing orthodoxy,2 he maintained, in

his writings and his life, that the construction of popular power and the over-

coming of capitalism was a labor of heroic creativity (Paris, 1980: 309). This

creativity was one of the foundations for the originality of his proposal. His was

not a carbon copy but something personal and his own, and it was anchored in

a core to which he remained deeply faithful. For him, revolutionary praxis was

the popular praxis of the struggle for life. It encompassed both expressly polit-

icized expressions and each family and community’s daily struggle (Munck,

2017: 99; Melis, 2013; Mazzeo, 2009: 94). Praxis was “the ultimate and irreduc-

ible reality of social existence,” the “foundation of all knowledge and of any

possibility of radically transforming social reality” (Germaná, 1995: 183). This

key principle was both epistemic and political.3

The praxis of struggle was linked not only to his thought but also to the

meaning of his life. The renowned Mariátegui scholar Alberto Flores Galindo

(2008) says that he saw himself as “a combatant, an agonist” (Mariátegui, 2010b:

244), suffering being “not death but struggle, the combatant suffers” (Mariátegui,

2010b: 312). In the end, this concept expresses the practice of vital struggle and

the constant risk taking of the popular majorities and especially of revolution-

ary practice.

According to Mariátegui, this was the creative subsoil of an Indo-American

socialism and had existed in Peru and Latin America as regional popular and

ancestral strife. Indigenous peoples had been “heroically creating” an ancestral

“practical socialism” that was alive and part of the complex structure of Peru

at the time. Thus, “indigenous reality” became “the core of his reflection”

(Melis, 1996: 7) and these remaining “elements of practical socialism”