To Sever the Limbs of US Imperialism: North Korean Support for Latin American Guerrilla Movements in the 1960s

Abstract

Abstract During the 1960s North Korea was connected to at least nine armed leftist rebel groups in seven countries in Latin America. Pyongyang primarily supported the revolutionary aims of these groups by providing them with military training inside the dprk. This agenda stemmed from the dprk leadership’s analysis of the international situation, one heavily influenced by its experience in the Korean War and Lenin’s theory of imperialism. This analysis identified the defeat of US imperialism as the primary task of the international Left, and that this could be achieved by the proliferation of armed insurgencies throughout the global South. By contrast, the Latin American militants who travelled to the dprk to undergo intensive military training were in search of personal transformation. Inspired by the Cuban Revolution and its doctrine of foquismo, these young radicals sought a transformative experience that would facilitate their evolution from “ordinary” civilians into revolutionary guerrillas.