Table Of ContentTranspacific Revolutionaries
The Chinese Revolution in Latin America
Matthew D. Rothwel
R Routledge
Taor&francs Croup
W YOAK AwD LONDON
First published 2013
by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Simultaneously published in the UK
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor å Francis Group
an informa business
2013 Taylor & Francis
The right of Matthew D. Rothwell to be identified as author of this work
has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All nghts reserved. No part oft his.book.may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any fom or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in
any infomation storage or retrieval system, without permission in wnting
from the publishers.
Trademark Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.
Library of CongressCataloging-in-Publication Data
Rothwell, Matthew D.
Transpacific revolutionaries: the Chinese revolution in Latin America / by
Matthew D. Rothwell.
P. cm.-(Routledgestudies in modem history; 10)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Latin America--Foreignrelations-China-Case studies. 2. China
Foreign relations-Latin America-Case studies. I. Title.
F1416.C6R68 2012
327 8051dc23
2012029208
1SBN: 978-0-415-65617-7 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-203-07808-2 (ebk)
Typeset in Sabon
by Apex Co Vantage, LLC
Prinied and bound in the United States of America by Publishers Graphics,
LLC
on sustainably sourced paper.
Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1 China and Latin America 11
2 Mexico: The Wayward Disciples of Vicente Lombardo 23
3 Forging the Fourth Sword of Marxism: The Chinese Revolution
and Peru's Shining Path
48
4 Bolivia: Nationalists and Maoists Diverge 71
S Conclusions
88
Notes
97
Bibliography
115
Index
125
Acknowledgments
I first became interested in Latin American Maoism when I stumbled uponit
in Mexico City in 1993. I was in Mexico visiting friends over winter break,
and we came upon a massive plantón (a sort of long-term, sit-in prorest)
in support of Abimael Guzmán, the Peruvian Shining Path leader who had
been captured in 1992. Over the course of the next two years, substan-
tial portions of which were spent in the regions of Chiapas controlled by
the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN), I met all variety of Latin
American and European leftists, and my curiosity about this Chinese ideo
logical transplant to Latin America deepened. I have been aided by
many
friends, colleagues and teachers during the almost twenty years since I first
became interested in Latin American Maoism. I cannot thank them all by
name, but I hope those who l don't name know who they are and know that
they are appreciated.
Serious research on this project, initially as a PhD dissertation, began
under the guidance of Christopher Boyer and Bruce Calder in 2005. Chris
read innumerable drafts of the dissertation patiently and with critical
eye, which has vastly improved the book and my own writing. aW ithout
Chris's mentorship, I suspect this book would not exist, and I deeply
thankful for all he has done for me and for this project. Brucea mh as been
endlessly encouraging of my scholarship and convinced
PhD at a time when I had serious doubts about-pursuing thmee l itfoe ppautrhsu teh aat
I am on (and that has been so rewarding). Bruce's
and much appreciated part of my time in graduate suscphpooorlt. wJaams eas cSoenasrtianngt,
Nils Jacobsen and Javier Villa Flores rounded
out my dissertation commit-
tee and provided valuable feedback which I incorporated into the book.
T am indebted in large part to Laura Hostetler and Andrew Eisenberg for
my knowledge of Chinese history, which has been so important in writing
this book.
My research benefited from the aid and cooperation
the United States, Mexico, Peru and Bolivia. In the Unitoefd mSatantye s,peIo wploeu lind
owpfa orwrtkiocsru klina. rJlMyo eellx ikiAceo nt doar netdha sa Bnko liVviiackai nCd,e rivna nsote sd.o Vinigc,k ip proubt ambley ins atvoeudc hm ew imtho nnteht-s
gave me permission to look through the
papers of
x Acknowledgments
his mother, Carol Andreas. During research trips to Denver and New York
City, I enjoyed the hospitality of Doug Vaughn and Monica and Paul Shay
respectively.
I conducted a large number of oral history interviews and 1nformational
meetings with Latin Americans, Europeans, North Americans, Indians and
Filipinos who traveled to China or had knowledge of pro-Ch1nese political
activities that are not directly cited in the text. Several of those I interviewed
or met with requested anonymity for a variety of reasons. Among thosel
can acknowledge publicly,I would like to thank Irving Zuckerman and Sid-
Gluck in the United States. Monica Shay (who traveled to China in the
ney
1970s as Monica Newbold and asked that her interview be cited under that
name) from the United States and Tron Ogrim of Norway both gave tasc
nating and helpful interviews before their untimely (and unrelated) deaths.
They were both triends of mine and are missed.
In Mexico, I would like to thank José David Quiñones, Yolanda Fernán
dez, Alberto Híjar, Adolfo Mexiac, Andrea Gómez, Enrique Cisneros, Iseo
Noyola, José Narro, Manuel Rodríguez, Martín Rodríguez, Víctor Reyes,
Camilo and Simitrio Tzompazquelitl.
In Peru, I would like to thank Laura González and Laura Balbuena for
their hospitaliry. The food and conversation at the hostel they run is out
standing. The staff of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission archive at
the Defensoria del Pueblo was always helpful. In particular, I haveto thank
Ruth Borja and Renzo Aroni Sulca. The interviews I conducted with Zenón
Naveda and Oswaldo Reynoso were very important, and l am grateful for
their time. Many other people gave generously of their time to help me make
connectionswith sources and orient me on doing research in Peru. For help
in this regard, I want to thank Jaymie Patricia Heilman, Carlos Alberto
García, Ricardo Caro, Ponciano del Pino, Iván Hinojosa, Juan Luis Pérez
Coronado, José Coronel and Enrique González Carré. The various street
vendors and others who helped me track down old and current Sendero
documents cannot all be thanked by name (especially since many of them
carry this material under the counter), but they have my gratitude.
In Bolivia, my research was greatly facilitated by the generous and con-
stant aid of lván Nogales, Oscar Vega, Ramiro Fernández and Luis Oporto.
Thanks also to Edgar Ramirez, Jorge Echazú, Hugo Borda, Félix Muruchi,
Diva Arratia, Víctor Reinaga, Emilse Escóbar, Oscar Zamora, Norma Bil-
bao, Jesús Taborga and Eduardo Ayllón.
Casey Harison, Tamara Hunt and Niharika Banerjea, colleagues of mine
during my time at the University of Southern Indiana, all gave me valuable
fedback on early drats of some chapters. Erie Zolov read several chapter
drafts and my exchanges with him helped to concretize my thinking on some
key aspects of the book. Routledge's three anonymous reviewers provided
very valuable feedback, for which I thank them.
Thanks to Roberto Márquez for permission to use his and David Arthur
McMurray's translation of Nicolás Guillén's "La canción del regreso."
Acknowledgments x
Research for this book was funded in part by grants from the Universiry
of Ilinois at Chicago, the University of Southern Indiana and the American
Historical Association.
Judith and Tom Dillon, my parents, have always supported my efforts
and are appreciated more than they real1ze. Pauline and Albert Gordon are
models of kindness and love that I strive to emulate. Above all, I thank my
wife, Lina, for her patience and sacrifice in helping to see me through with
this project.
Introduction
Is it clear to you,
the land of rice and of bamboo?
Isn't it clear to you?
I have seen Peking:
Peking,
no mandarin
nor palanquin.
I have seen Shanghai:
I cry,
no more Yankees in Shanghai.
Ir's awesome
how life's begun to blossom.
It's strange
how life's begun to change.
Sing with me, brother,
and speak as I speak!
I cry,
no more Yankees in Shanghai.
Peking:
the coffin of the mandarin.
Run, behold it.. . you,
the land of rice and of bamboo!
-Nicolás Guilén, "Song of Return
Between 1949 and 1976, thousands of Latin Americans traveled to the
socialist People's Republic of China. Many of these Latin Americans who
visited China were interested in adapting aspects of China's policies to
Latin American conditions. Some, such as Mexico's Vicente Lombardo
Toledano, were mainly interested in China's potential to show how a
Third World country might break out of the dependent economic develop-
ment paradigm. Orhers, such as Peru's Abimael Guzmán, hoped to learn
how to reproduce China 's experience of revolutionary warfare. At least
2 Transpacific Revolutionaries
a thousand of these Latin American visitors were trained in politics and
military matters while in China. The efforts of these Latin Americans who
visited China to domesticate what they saw as the lessons of the Chinese
Revolution created a pro-Chinese political trend that played a substantial
role in Latin American social and guerrilla movements in the second half
of the twentieth century.
In Peru, at least 69,000 people died during the Shining Path insurgency,
which began in 1980. The Shining P'ath is known for carrying out ideologi-
cally driven actions that many people not well-versed in the Shining Path's
worldview found incomprehensible. By understanding how Chinese ideas
influenced Shining Path members, we can better comprehend some of the
Shining Path's more bizarre actions, such as hanging dead dogs trom lamp
posts in the streets of Peruvian cities. Understanding how the Shining Path
saw itselt as applying Maoist ideology to Peru also helps us to understand the
decision-making dynamics behind the Shining Path's destructive response to
flagging peasant support in the face of the dirty war waged by the Peruvian
government, a phenomenon that many observers have found bewildering.
A key part of understanding how the leaders of the Shining Path thought
about their own Maoism, and how they hoped to reshape Peru in a Maoist
mold, is understanding the experience of those leaders in China. Almost all
of the top Shining Path leadership spent considera ble time in China, and
their efforts to imitate Chinese political forms they experienced firsthand in
China illustrate the importance of travel to China in the formation of the
Shining Path's political vision.
Examining the intluence of Chinese revolutionary ideas also sheds new
light on several recent episodes of Bolivian history. Some members of the
left-wing of the Revolutionary Nationalist Movement government (MNR,
1952-1964) were interested in China as a model for economic policies
and political reforms that they hoped to pursue in Bolivia. And the Chi-
nese hoped that the Bolivian revolutionary nationalists might be the first
government in the western hemisphere to give diplomatic recognition to
the People's Republic of China. While the pro-Chinese faction of the MNR
failed to redirect Bolivia's economics and politics away from dependence on
the United States, the existence of a faction within the MNR that favored
Chinese-style policies complicates our understanding of the dynamics o
Revolutionary Nationalism in Bolivia.
Maoist ideas also played an influential role in the Bolivian miners move
ment. In the middle of the twentieth century, Bolivia was dependent on
exporting tin. Bolivian miners' political influence sometimes matched the
decisive role of their industry in the country's economy, such as when they
insured the 1952 Revolutionary Nationalist revolution's success. The mili-
tant mining center of Catavi was a hotbed of Maoist activity, "the proletar
an university" according to a former Maoist leader I interviewed." It was
here that Federico Escóbar Zapata, a popular leader of the miners, held the
founding congress of the pro-Chinese Communist Party of Bolivia (Marxist-
Introduction 3
Leninist) in 1965. Both Escóbar, the general secretary, and his deputys ecre
tary, Oscar Zamora, had already been to China.
In Mexico, Chinese ideas contributed to the eclectic and heady intellec-
tual mix that circulated in the student movement of the 1960s and 1970s.
The Chinese influence combined with the influence of the Cuban Revolution
to divide both the Communist Party and the adherents of Vicente Lom-
bardo's brand of Marxism berween those who hoped to continue trying to
pressure the government to adopt more socialistic policies and those who
hoped to overthrow the state with armed force. As the guerrilla experience
of Florencio Medrano demonstrates, the post-1960s guerrla movements in
Mexico cannot be properly understood without coming to terms with earlier
eforts to bring Chinese ideas to Mexico.
While efforts to domesticate Chinese ideas to Latin America yielded
ditferent resuts in Peru, Bolivia and Mexico, in each country the process
of transmission of these ideas was remarkably similar. Key individuals
traveled to China and upon their returns to Peru, Bolivia and Mexico dis-
seminated their understandings of the lessons of the Chinese Revolution
Via party meetings and public forums, and in articles and books. Parties
and organized networks of activists worked hard to distribute propaganda
promoting Maoist revolutionary ideas, much of which was produced in
China. Thus, in each country considered here, the movement of Chinese
ideas to Latin America was the product of a highly organized effort that
involved formal connections between Latin American activists and the
People's Republic of China.
THE ORGANIZED INFLUENCE OF CHINESE REVOLUTIONARY
IDEAS: A NEW DIMENSION TO OUR UNDERSTANDING
OF LATIN AMERICAN SOCIAL AND GUERRILLA
MOVEMENTS OF THE 1950s-1990s
In the past, scholars who investigated the influence of Maoism in Latin
America were more concerned with the international maneuvers of a Cold
War enemy of the United States than with Latin American social and political
movements per se. In the 1960s and early 1970s, a series of scholarly articles
and a single book were published that examined China's attempts to spread
its intluence in Latin America." These works on the Chinese intluence in
Latin America reflected rhe Cold War focus on containing communism and
countering the threat of communist revolution. China was more the tocus
of concern than Latin America, and so these works emphasized how China
was trying to spread its ideology in Latin America, neglecting the questions
of why or how Latin Americans might be interested in Chinese communism.
Indeed, with the rapprochement between China and the United States in the
early 1970s, this whole field of scholarship disappeared. The agency of Latin
Americans in the transfer of ideas was almost complerely neglected.
4TranspactfteR eivoluttonares
The concerns that anmate the current study that is, the nature of the
anster of deas across the (Global South and the role of Maosm within par
tICular Latun Amerncan social contexts, were almost entirely absent from this
turst generatuon of sc holarsh1p on the spread of Maorsm to Latin America
Inc ontrast, I emphas1ze the Latun Amercan agency in the transfer of Maorst
deology Although Chna was ecager and willing to promote its revolution
ay deology among laun Anericans, there could be no que stion of those
deas ganing any traction without an enthusiastic effort by Latn American
sympathzers. The Cold War era scholarsh1p on China and Latin America
did get most of its tacts right most of the time, and for that am gratetul
am stand1ng on the shoulders of those cold warriors when it comes to
the not very casy task of actually reconstructing key events and po1nts of
contact in the process oft the creation of Lat1n American Maosm. Most of
those events and points of contact were secret at the time and are still kept
secret today by China and most former participants. But the "what are those
nefarious Chinese doing now to underminet he U.S. sphere of influence in
Latin America" interpretive standpoint of those early cold warriors means
that their work does not tell us much of value about how Maoism played
out within particular Latin American societies.
For example, let's examine a quote from the 1970 book Communist
China and Lat1n America, which illustrates the problems with a China
Centered viewpoint on the transter of Maoism to Latin America: "The Chi-
nese have also attempted to expand their influence in Latin America through
the use ot tilms. As early as March, 1959, they were showing Chinese films
in remote Bolivia, where they were seen by crowds in La Paz, Cochabamba,
and Catavi. Altogether they scheduled showings of the films in forry other
Bolivian cities, including Sucre and Santa Cruz."* While China no doubt
provided tilms free of charge to sympathetic Bolivians (for reasons and
through mechanisms that I will detail in later chapters), such a film series
could only have been organized by Bolivians who wanted to promote Chi-
nese ideas in Bolivia. The author ignores the agency t Bolivians in this
process, despite acknowledging that China did not have a single state repre
Sentative on the ground in Bolivia at the time (indeed, it seems that China's
ablty to organize the tilm series without having a representative on the
ground was taken by the author as evidence of the mysterious power of the
dangerous and craty Chnese, rather than as evidence of Latn American
agency). Sadly, the above quote is representative of the approach of the
1960s and early 1970s literature on Chinese intluence in Latn America. ln
reality, the broad distuibution of Chnese tilus m Bolivia demonstrated the
scope ot pro Chnese eftorts by Bolivians rather than China's ability to reach
nto all parts of Bolavia.
As much as I would like to take lull credit tor the, in retrospect, rather
Simple idea that t might be truittul to examine the tormation ot Latin Amer-
ICan Maoisms from a Latin American-centered perspective, I am heavily
indebred to two recent trends in the study of the globalized Cold War. The
