Modern Latin American Revolutions

Eric Selbin

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9780429974595
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

In contrast to previous studies that have centered on the institutionalization of revolution in Latin America and the Caribbean, Modern Latin American Revolutions, Second Edition, introduces the concept of consolidation of the revolutionary process?the efforts of revolutionary leaders to transform society and the acceptance by a significant majority of the population of the core of the social revolutionary project. As a result, the spotlight is on people, not structures, and transformation, not simply revolutionary transition.The second edition of this acclaimed book has been revised to include new information on the cases of Bolivia, Cuba, Nicaragua, and Grenada, assessing the extent to which each revolution was both institutionalized and consolidated. This edition also boasts expanded coverage on Ch uevara's visionary leadership and an all-new section that addresses the future of revolution in Latin America and the Caribbean. Dr. Selbin argues that there is a strong link between organizational leadership and the institutionalization process on the one hand, and visionary leadership and the consolidation process on the other. Particular attention is given to the ongoing revolutionary process in Nicaragua, with an emphasis on the implications and ramifications of the 1990 electoral process. A final chapter includes brief analyses of the still unfolding revolutionary processes in El Salvador and Peru.

CHAPTER ONE
Social Revolution and the Role of the Individual

Revolution remains endlessly fascinating to scholars and activists alike; it is, H. L. Mencken once suggested, the "sex of politics."¹ However, the concept of revolution has lost much of its utility, rendered by excessive and careless usage into little more than a synonym for "watershed" or "turning point" and invoked as a rhetorical device to lend drama or import to far less dramatic, even mundane, occasions. In addition, the use of the term to connote fundamental societal transformation has recently been challenged by the claim that the triumph of capitalism is contemporaneous with the demise of revolution.

Nonetheless, social scientists who continue to debate exact meanings of revolution remain committed to the importance of the concept and the need to fine-tune it. Revolutions offer us a rare opportunity to glimpse political life in its rawest, most open, and perhaps most revealing form. The drama of revolution lays society bare, providing the opportunity to see the hopes and fears of great numbers of people whose daily struggle is bound up in the mundane questions of where their next meal will come from, how to clothe their children, or how to care for their sick. Suddenly—although in some cases only after an agonizingly long struggle that can last beyond the life of many participants—possibilities seem to abound.

Revolutions thus appear as the most profoundly political moments that occur in any society.² Sociologist Michael Kimmel goes as far as to position the concept of revolution as the "centerpiece of all theories about society."³ Under any set of circumstances, revolution provides an important and critical lens through which to view the world. The human belief in boundless possibilities and the intrinsic ability of people to reshape both the world and themselves present the people involved in the revolutionary process a unique treasure. It is in the revolutionary moment that those people become most accessible to outsiders like us.

There is a rich and lengthy tradition of social science research on revolution.⁴ Most of this research has been and continues to be based on what are commonly referred to as the "great revolutions": the French, Russian, Chinese, and, occasionally, Mexican. These revolutionary processes were characterized by the societal tensions surrounding the transition from feudalism to capitalism, particularly class struggle; they marked the demise of "ancient, traditional royal, or imperial regimes."⁵ As a result, research on these revolutions focused on their causes. Commonly these revolutions were portrayed as evidence of the "grand sweep of history" and the importance of institutions and structures.

The revolutions in France, Russia, China, and Mexico thus may be seen as the "first generation" of social revolutions. These revolutions have served to help social scientists and others define the term revolution, and they have fueled research on a "second generation" of revolutions, those in the Third World since World War II.⁶ Here again, the focus has largely been on the causes of revolution, particularly the role played by the peasantry.⁷ Yet the reference point ultimately seems to remain the first-generation revolutions. The modern Latin American revolutions are related—but distinct from their predecessors.⁸ The importance of these differences should not be ignored.

The links between the two generations are not difficult to discern. In both, the social revolutionary process broadly unfolds in the same pattern: insurrection, political victory, and the effort to transform society.⁹ Recognition of this connection is important, among other reasons, because it allows us to take advantage of and build on the outstanding work done by several generations of social science theorists of revolution. It also reminds us of the extent to which revolutionaries look to past revolutions for both negative and positive examples. All four revolutions considered here—the Bolivian, Cuban, Nicaraguan, and Grenadian—drew to varying degrees on the experience of the Mexican revolution.¹⁰

There are, however, important and meaningful differences between the first and second generation of revolutions. At least two of these differences relate to the changes that have occurred in the international system. The modern Latin American revolutions have come of age in a time of economic dependency that contrasts rather sharply with that of the essentially preindustrial first generation.¹¹ Furthermore, these revolutions have not occurred in "large and predominantly rural nations with long-standing traditional governments," but rather in neocolonial settings that featured relatively modern government institutions.¹² Although these differences are important, it is also the case that they can be readily captured by a structural perspective.

Some differences cannot be easily captured by such a perspective. The conscious choices and intentional actions of people have played clearly critical roles in the revolutionary processes. The modern Latin American revolutions in particular have been characterized by profoundly multiclass alliances and high degrees of voluntarism. Structural theories are poorly equipped to explain the even minor cross-class alliances present in these cases and largely deny the importance of leadership in the first-generation revolutions. Such theories are even less useful in helping to understand cases such as Bolivia, Cuba, Nicaragua, and Grenada.

Revolution clearly denotes more than a simple transition. The term implies that in the period after revolutionaries acquire control of the state structures, they will seek to transform fundamentally at least some facet of society. Social revolution describes those relatively rare cases where the revolutionaries seek the profound transformation of the entire society. The failure of most theories to account for these attempts at societal transformation seems problematic.

This failure is exacerbated by the predominance of deterministic or structuralist approaches. Macrolevel structural forces (such as the state, class relations, or the international economic and political arena) are of great use in sketching the conditions present and to be encountered. They are of little use, however, in exploring the essence of the social revolutionary process.¹³ Nowhere is this more obvious than the inability of such approaches to explain (or even explore) the often remarkable verve and creativity with which revolutionaries create new societies. It seems clear that what is missing from these conceptualizations is recognition of the central and critical role played by people in the complex process of revolution.¹⁴

To date, social science researchers have commonly focused on the structural determinants of the breakdown of regimes or the formation of revolutionary vanguards and their ability to cobble together coalitions that succeed in taking power. Given the magnitude implicit in the revolutionary process, this focus is understandable.¹⁵ However, researchers have paid relatively little attention to the revolutionary process as it continues after political victory. What attention there has been has focused almost exclusively on institutions and structures. The very aspect that defines the social revolutionary process—the effort at fundamental transformation of society and the people in it—has largely been ignored.

The attention of those scholars who have considered the period that follows political victory has remained focused on various political, economic, or social variables. As a result, social scientists, particularly political scientists and sociologists, have done an excellent job of understanding and explaining the "institutionalization" of revolutions, that is, the reestablishment and reorganization of state structures, including the creation of new institutions.¹⁶ Although the establishment and maintenance of state power is a minimum condition for the success of revolutions, it is only part of the story.

The term revolution, as I mentioned, evokes images that include conscious efforts by some of the participants to effect fundamental changes.¹⁷ What defines any list of "great revolutions " as Hobsbawm pointed out, is not acquisition of state power but devotion to the creation of a "new framework," a new orientation for society. A revolution that has not at least attempted to establish such a framework is unlikely to be on the list.¹⁸ Thus revolutions have historically been judged by the people's relationships with the new government and with each other and by how much or how little they embraced the revolutionary process itself, forged in the complex relationship between the revolutionaries and the population in whose name they purport to act.

The quintessence of the social revolutionary process is the transformation of society, more specifically, of citizens. Perhaps the most eloquent and certainly the most compelling explanation of what this means was suggested to me by an older woman in Nicaragua who related with a mix of amusement, disbelief, and disgust how the wealthy in Nicaragua had treated the rest of the population as if it were "cattle." She hastened to assure me: "This could never happen again. We would never allow this. We know now that we are not cattle .. . and we will never be their cattle again."¹⁹ This change in the way citizens view their society and their own roles within it has largely been ignored by political scientists. I will attempt to capture this change by introducing the concept of the consolidation of a revolution, as distinct from its institutionalization.

The difference between institutionalization and consolidation is more than a matter of semantics. Although subtle, it is an important, even essential, distinction. Consolidation occurs when a significant majority of the population embraces the core of the social revolutionary project—centered on the creation of a more just and equitable society—and is therefore willing to resist efforts to roll back the gains made through the social revolutionary process.²⁰ The focus is on people, not structures; choices, not determinism; and transformation, not simply transition. Revolutions are human creations—with all the complexity inherent in such a claim—rather than inevitable "natural" processes. The failure of most social science researchers to adequately incorporate the role played by individuals has rendered their analyses flat, incomplete, and unpersuasive; the omission of human intentions and actions hinders efforts to explain revolutionary processes.

This chapter continues with a brief review of the relevant literature on revolution; I then propose a working definition of revolution. In the next section I introduce the concept of consolidation as a process distinct from institutionalization and as an analytically useful tool in the effort to understand social revolutionary processes as well as other forms of societal change. In a final section, which presages the discussion in Chapter 3, I consider the role of individuals in the social revolutionary process and suggest that they are responsible for the direction the revolutionary process takes after political victory.

The Literature on Revolution

Revolution, as Finley pointed out, is a term that is used commonly and understood well by academics and nonacademics alike despite a variety of contradictory meanings.²¹ This is not to imply that revolution can mean anything at all that one proposes. Indeed, revolution carries with it a common set of implications that distinguish it from other phenomena. Still, there remains a great deal of debate over the meaning and import of revolution as a term.²²

Definitions do not solve problems; the question is whether the chosen definition advances one's understanding of the term.²³ At the same time, as Aya pointed out, confusion arising from the lack of "adequate distinctions may slow solving problems of explanation. Hence, though we need not define, we must often distinguish."²⁴ Rather than offer yet another "precise" definition of revolution, what I propose here is a working definition that builds directly on preexisting conceptualizations. Other explanations, relying on classic definitions, lack suitable attention to the final, transformative phase of the social revolutionary process and the role of people in that process.

Social scientists, philosophers, and revolutionaries have constructed a wide variety of models of revolution. In the social sciences the current reference points are the people whom Goldstone has designated the "third generation" of revolutionary theorists.²⁵ The third generation drew in part on the "natural history" of revolutions, cataloged by the first generation of theorists in the 1920s and 1930s.²⁶ The third generation also built on and reacted against the work of the second generation of theorists, who in the 1960s used social science methodologies to explain revolutions.²⁷ Most of those social science theories have proven to be poorly conceived, generating analyses based on what Hobsbawm labeled "static dichotomies":²⁸ simplistic distinctions such as violence/nonviolence²⁹ or the function/dysfunction of society.³⁰

The third-generation theorists promised more-detailed examinations of a greater variety of revolutions and "holistic" understandings of the revolutionary process.³¹ There is little question that these theorists considered a wider array of revolutions than had their predecessors, and they sought broader understandings of the revolutionary process. Their work was marked by important insights as well as Skocpol's paradigmatic definition of revolution.³² Yet three things that cut across the work of these theorists have remained troubling: Their theories are rooted in the "great revolutions"; their focus is almost solely on causes of revolution; and structural perspectives would appear to be their default position. To the degree that there has been any consideration of the period after the revolutionaries came to power, these scholars continued their predecessors' inclination for positing reestablishment of the state—defined here as institutionalization—as the ultimate goal. None of the third-generation works has held up well as a general theory of revolution.

Although this third generation of theorists holds sway, there is arguably an emergent fourth generation of theorists who have deepened and expanded conceptions of matters revolutionary.³³ Forrest Colburn and I have called for the return of people and their ideas to a place of prominence in understanding and exploring revolutionary processes.³⁴ Some of the leading young figures in the field—such as John Foran, Jack Goldstone, Jeff Goodwin, and Timothy Wickham-Crowley—have cast their nets somewhat wider, calling for increased attention to the role of culture as at least a variable in the mix of factors..³⁵ All of us have sought to varying degr...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgments to the Second Edition
• Acknowledgments to the First Edition
• 1 Social Revolution and the Role of the Individual
• 2 Social Revolutionary Paths: Bolivia, Cuba, Nicaragua, and Grenada
• 3 Social Revolutionary Leadership: Ideology and Strategy
• 4 Making the Revolution Reality: The Nicaraguan Revolution, 1979-1990
• 5 Bringing People Back In: A New Vocabulary for Exploring Revolutionary Processes
• Epilogue: The Future of Revolution in Latin America and the Caribbean—Canon and Revision
• Notes
• List of Acronyms
• Index