Abstract

MARTI I PUIG, Salvador  and  ALVAREZ, Alberto Martín. Rethinking insurgency: Social movements and revolutionary vanguards in Central America. Perf. latinoam. [online]. 2020, vol.28, n.56, pp.51-74.  Epub Aug 30, 2021. ISSN 0188-7653.  https://doi.org/10.18504/pl2856-003-2020.

Throughout the twentieth century, social revolutions in Latin America were the work of broad urban-rural multiclass and multi-ethnic revolutionary coalitions. In other cases, however, broad revolutionary coalitions were unable to defeat the regimes they faced. The resistance that different political regimes showed against revolutionary challenges has been up to now the factor on which literature has focused to explain these different outcomes. In a novel way, this article explores the internal dynamics of revolutionary coalitions, focusing on the relationship between revolutionary elites and social movements. To this end, we compare the relationships established between elites and movements in three cases with different outcomes: Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala. The paper argues that different levels of autonomy of the social movements from insurgent elites are also an important factor in the explanation of the triumphs or failures of revolutionary coalitions.

Keywords : revolution; social movements; insurgency; Nicaragua; El Salvador; Guatemala.