Communism is Found in Unexpected Places

José Carlos Mariátegui on Aesthetics, Science, and Internationalist Politics

Writing in a time of crisis when the threat of fascism was imminent not just in Europe, but also in Latin America, José Carlos Mariátegui dedicated himself to discovering the infrastructure for an emancipated life. The new world he fought for was expansive. It affirmed a freedom beyond the defense of formal liberties or the minimal assurance of basic needs. For the Peruvian Marxist, constructing an alternative world meant finding and discerning everything existing in this one, in its vast living history and diverse ways of life, which could be gathered to unleash an imaginative struggle forceful enough to overcome exploitation and alienation. Mariátegui’s search for human creativity brought him to find the seeds of communism in the resistant past of indigenous communities, but
also in a future opened up by scientific discoveries; in the debates around modernist aesthetics, but also in the strategic discussions around party organization. In a moment of existential crisis José Carlos Mariátegui searched for an opening to revolutionary action by widening the horizon of socialism. In our own trying times we could learn something from his method of gathering the pieces of human ingenuity to find communism in unexpected places.

Alejo Stark, Youngkyun Choi, Karen Benezra, Diego Arrocha Paris (mod)