Peru is again in the news with the announcement that the leftist and teachers\u2019 trade union leader, Pedro Castillo, is to be the country\u2019s new president. So now is a good time to read about one of Peru\u2019s best Marxist writers and organisers.<\/p>\n
Jos\u00e9 Carlos was active in the years after the Bolsheviks came to power in Russia and before the counter-revolution of Stalin became clear. He was exiled to Europe, mainly Italy, for four years from 1919.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt home, he engaged with his own reality to expand and deepen the Marxism he had encountered in Italy. This was not simply an intellectual exercise. He was an organizer, a builder of movements, a teacher, and an agitator.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMari\u00e1tegui lived only into his thirty-sixth year, and he spent most of his years in considerable pain and the last six in a wheelchair. Yet his energy and productivity were breathtaking.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mike Gonzalez, a long-time member of the SWP in Britain, provides an introduction to the politics of Jos\u00e9 Carlos. That demonstrates how Marxism retains its core approach whilst being adapted to the realities of the Global South in Peru.<\/p>\n
Download below<\/p>\n