This book presents the histories of the revolutions in Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela as the latest demonstrations of the price the popular masses pay for the absence of a correct revolutionary strategy. The goal of the leaders of the revolutionary movements in all three countries was to create a progressive, independent bourgeois-democratic state but contrary to expectations, the national bourgeoisie did not welcome a national democratic revolution. Instead, faced with a mass movement, it fought hard to re-assert its own and US imperialism’s economic and political stranglehold, opposing increased democratic rights, greater social equality, agrarian reform and the redistribution of wealth. We trace how, in all three countries, the national bourgeoisie joined forces with imperialism and used violent methods to reverse the progressive measures made, and when these attempts failed carried on a campaign of economic sabotage to starve the masses into submission. In Cuba the revolution was propelled forward by abolishing capitalism and enormous conquests were made. In Nicaragua and Venezuela, the revolution was stopped half way, leading to disaster and defeat. As the world enters a decisive revolutionary epoch, reformists, just as they did in Nicaragua and Venezuela, attempt to hold that revolution back. In the face of all experience, their solution to social crises is one which stubbornly remains within the narrow limits of capitalism. This book is a contribution to the debate about revolutionary strategy. It highlights the lessons to be learned from the recent past, argues against the failed reformist approach and draws the conclusion that only through the workers coming to power and expropriating the oligarchy can we begin to overcome the exploitation and oppression of the masses.

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.

In December 2005, following a series of convulsive upheavals that saw the overthrow of two presidents in three years, Bolivian peasant leader Evo Morales became the first Indian president in South American history. Consequently, according to S. Sándor John, Bolivia symbolizes new shifts in Latin America, pushed by radical social movements of the poor, the dispossessed, and indigenous people once crossed off the maps of "official" history. But, as John explains, Bolivian radicalism has a distinctive genealogy that does not fit into ready-made patterns of the Latin American left. According to its author, this book grew out of a desire to answer nagging questions about this unusual place. Why was Bolivia home to the most persistent and heroically combative labor movement in the Western Hemisphere? Why did this movement take root so deeply and so stubbornly? What does the distinctive radical tradition of Trotskyism in Bolivia tell us about the past fifty years there, and what about the explosive developments of more recent years? To answer these questions, John clearly and carefully pieces together a fragmented past to show a part of Latin American radical history that has been overlooked for far too long. Based on years of research in archives and extensive interviews with labor, peasant, and student activists—as well as Chaco War veterans and prominent political figures—the book brings together political, social, and cultural history, linking the origins of Bolivian radicalism to events unfolding today in the country that calls itself "the heart of South America."

FROST (copy 2): From the John Holmes Library collection.