Years of hope: the new left in Bolivia, 1960—1980

Abstract

This work is devoted to the emergence of the "new left" movement in Latin America in the 60s, considering as an example Bolivia. Here it is proposed to analyze the “new lefts” that arose as a result of the crisis of traditional orthodox Marxism and communism, and not those leftists that emerged on the continent after the collapse of the USSR and the dramatic changes in the left political space, the emergence of various variants of “socialism of the 21st century”, also called "new". In Bolivia, the “new left” was formed from the search for a synthesis of Marxism and nationalism, the renewal of the ideas of socialism at the expense of Western, unorthodox Marxism, and an alliance with social Catholicism. All the political and ideological currents of the "new left" arose under the dominant influence of the Cuban revolution, the guerrilla of Che Guevara, “theology of liberation” and the "world revolution" of 1968. This phenomenon had a short existence, entering a deep crisis in the late 80s, but at the same time leaving a rich legacy for the next generations of the Bolivian left, and there is a clear continuity between the “new left” of the 60s and 70s and today's Latin American left.