A quick look at two successful Marxist revolutions during the Cold War
American imperial investment in Latin America created a predictable response of violent Marxist communist revolution. Marxism was the natural reaction to centuries of colonial, neocolonial, and imperial exploitation, and suppression of the Latin American economy.
After the United States overthrew a democratically elected leftist leader in Guatemala, many Latin Americans soon realized that enacting lasting change through political means would not be successful. However, despite a multitude of revolutionary dreams throughout the region, Marxist guerillas were successful in only two countries: Cuba and Nicaragua. The ability of the guerrillas to adapt and ultimately use the population as the center of gravity allowed them to garner support and achieve victory.
Determined to overthrow the autocratic dictator, Fulgencio Batista, Fidel Castro persevered over the course of six years and finally emerged victorious in 1959. Like many of his predecessors throughout Latin America, Castro at first attempted legally opposing the rule of Batista, only to find himself in jail.
Realizing that only armed insurrection would accomplish his goal of ousting Batista, Castro’s initial attack failed and again landed him in jail. Once he and his revolutionaries regrouped in Mexico, they managed to return to Cuba with only a handful of guerrillas and a shattered plan. Only by retreating into the Sierra Maestra mountains and conducting protracted warfare over the course of the next two years were the Cuban revolutionaries successful.
Along with an assist from sympathetic journalists, Castro was able to win popular support from the Cuban people and force Batista to flee the country on the last day of 1958. The people, he realized, were the key to victory. A lesson that would prove crucial in the next successful Latin American Marxist revolution.
The next year, 1960, saw a new revolutionary movement begin in Nicaragua inspired by the Cuban Revolution and the legendary Nicaraguan anti-imperialist Augusto Cesar Sandino. Instead of nine years of struggle, the Nicaraguan Sandinistas would not take power until 1979, nearly two decades after legendary Carlos Fonseca formed this group.
The Sandinistas experienced many problems while trying to overthrow the Somoza regime in Nicaragua, mostly due to their own ignorance and disorganization. It was only after Fonseca and his revolutionaries decided to move into the cities that the tide began to turn. Fonseca and his movement now realized that the center of gravity for an insurgency was the population, and to get the population on its side was the key to victory.
In the 1970s, the Somoza regime, frustrated by its inability to find and kill Sandinistas, became very brutal in its tactics, and killed or “disappeared” many civilians and innocents. Napalming entire villages and indiscriminately killing people created much more sympathy for the Sandinista’s cause and ultimately led to widespread hatred for the Somoza regime.
By 1979, Somoza had fled to Miami and the Sandinista’s created a new socially democratic government in his place. A new government for the people of Nicaragua.
At last, the Marxist revolutionaries were only successful once they essentially applied the theories of Marxism to warfare itself. It is readily apparent that Latin American revolutionaries completely understood this, as written in the Movement for National Liberation.
In this document, revolutionary forces from Uruguay published a document that served as a handbook for guerilla warfare and within it are many references to winning over the population and being cognizant of them in all their actions. If Marxism’s focus is on the people, then it is only logical that the armed revolutionaries must also focus on the people.
