UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SANTA CRUZ MARXISM AND CONSTITUENT POWER IN LATIN AMERICA: THEORY AND HISTORY FROM THE MID-TWENTIETH CENTURY THROUGH THE PINK TIDE A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in HISTORY OF CONSCIOUSNESS with an emphasis in POLITICS by Robert Cavooris December 2019 The dissertation of Robert Cavooris is approved: _______________________________________ Robert Meister, Chair _______________________________________ Guillermo Delgado-P. _______________________________________ Juan Poblete _______________________________________ Megan Thomas _________________________________________ Quentin Williams Acting Vice Provost and Dean of Graduate Studies © Copyright by Robert Cavooris, 2019. All rights reserved. Table of Contents Abstract iv Acknowledgements and Dedication vi Preface x Introduction 1 Chapter 1 41 Intellectuals and Political Strategy: Hegemony, Posthegemony, and Post-Marxist Theory in Latin America Chapter 2 83 Constituent Power and Capitalism in the Works of René Zavaleta Mercado Chapter 3 137 Bolivian Insurgency and the Early Work of Comuna Chapter 4 204 Potentials and Limitations of the Bolivian ‘Process of Change’ Conclusions 261 Appendix: List of Major Works by Comuna (1999–2011) 266 Bibliography 271 iii Abstract Marxism and Constituent Power in Latin America: Theory and History from the Mid-Twentieth Century through The Pink Tide Robert Cavooris Throughout the history of Marxist theory and practice in Latin America, certain questions recur. What is the relationship between political and social revolution? How can state institutions serve as tools for political change? What is the basis for mass collective political agency? And how can intellectual work contribute to broader emancipatory political movements? Through textual and historical analysis, this dissertation examines how Latin American intellectuals and political actors have reframed and answered these questions in changing historical circumstances. Four episodes in this history are examined: debates between José Carlos Mariátegui and Raúl Haya de la Torre in the late 1920s; the trajectory of the publication Pasado y Presente in Argentina from the 1960s to the 1980s; the uneven path from nationalism to Marxism in the work of Bolivian theorist René Zavaleta Mercado between the 1950s and 1980s; and, most recently, the theoretical efforts of activist-intellectuals in the Comuna group during the last two decades of political change in Bolivia. By examining these episodes in both their theoretical content and historical context, the dissertation argues that the modern concept of constituent power plays a central if sometimes obscure role in theorists’ approaches, while the theory of hegemony, drawn from the work of Antonio Gramsci, informs their strategic perspectives. It also shows, however, how different thinkers have run up iv against the limitations of these frameworks; mass political events have effects that exceed the dominant conceptual understandings of constituent power and hegemony, and reach beyond the scope of the state, demanding new explanations. The resulting tensions, revealed here by extensively analyzing the case of Comuna in Bolivia during the Pink Tide, have compelled Latin American theorists to recover elided indigenous histories, to forge materialist conceptions of culture and knowledge, to explore aleatory notions of political organization, and to reimagine the political role of intellectuals as that of weaving together, rather than leading, disparate tendencies of political innovation. v Acknowledgements and Dedication To produce new ideas is a collective process. Whatever this dissertation has achieved in this respect owes to the many seminar meetings, reading groups, organizing discussions, and casual conversations that I’ve shared with others over the last several years. It would be impossible to account for all of them, or even to be aware of each of their impact. Still, I have no shortage of conscious debts. Both at UCSC and in other settings at least as formative, I’ve been lucky to have many sharp colleagues and comrades willing to exchange ideas. For this, I am grateful to Isaac Blacksin, Josh Brahinsky, Stephen Engel, Jared Gampel, Michelle Glowa, Debbie Gould, Evan Grupsmith, Asad Haider, Patrick King, Janina Larenas, Ben Mabie, Sarah Mason, Julie McIntyre, Salar Mohandesi, Jeb Purucker, Delio Vásquez, and Martabel Wasserman, among many others. I’m also grateful for discussions with all of my collaborators in the Viewpoint Magazine editorial collective, which has been an indispensable intellectual home for me. My time doing research in Bolivia would scarcely have been possible without the assistance of Aaron Augsburger, who generously shared his contacts and his insights from the field. During my visits, Álvaro García Linera, Raul Prada Alcoreza, and Luis Tapia Mealla were each generous enough to sit down for a conversation or two. My friend Oscar Vega Camacho went above and beyond in this respect; we shared many great exchanges, and he opened up his home, library, and personal archive so that I could better understand the formation and development of Comuna as an intellectual and political project. I was also lucky to speak to Carlos Crespo and vi Juan José Alba in Cochabamba. My thanks go to the staff of the reading room at the Museo Nacional de Etnografía y Folklore in La Paz, where I spent many hours looking for old journals and a warm place to read, and to the helpful staff at the CEDIB in Cochabamba, who guided me through their extensive hemeroteca. Each member of my committee made essential contributions to the development of this project. Bob Meister championed my work when it mattered most, and he always pushed me to consider the deepest implications and most difficult theoretical questions arising from my research. Guillermo Delgado-P provided a wealth of fascinating historical and anthropological insight at our morning coffee meetings over the years – I always looked forward to them, and I look forward to more in the future. Megan Thomas offered key intellectual and professional guidance at every step of my grad school journey, beginning with my very first visit to UCSC as a prospective student. Her generous, constructive comments on each dissertation draft were an important reminder that, indeed, I have something to say, but there is always room to say it better. Juan Poblete’s razor-sharp questions kept me on my toes, and his encouragement helped me strive to new levels of precision and consistency in my thinking. Chapter 1 benefitted from the comments of two anonymous reviewers when it was originally published as “Intellectuals and Political Strategy: Hegemony, Posthegemony, and Post-Marxist Theory in Latin America,” Contemporary Politics 23, no. 2 (2017): pp. 231–249. The revised version is included here with permission from the publisher. Chapter 4 was likewise helped along by an anonymous reviewer vii when portions of it were published as “Rethinking Knowledge and Difference in Latin America’s Insurgent Moment: On de Sousa Santos and Garcia Linera,” Historical Materialism 26, no. 4 (2018): pp. 227–252. Editorial comments from Leo Panitch and Greg Albo were also instructive when other portions of Chapter 4 were published as “Turning the Tide: Revolutionary Potential and the Limits of Bolivia’s ‘Process of Change,’” in Socialist Register 2017: Rethinking Revolution, eds. Panitch and Albo (London: Merlin Press, 2016). Both publishers have granted permission for the material reproduced in this dissertation. I’d also like to note that much of my thinking in Chapter 4 owes to discussion with my classmates in Fernando Leiva’s Epistemologies of the South Seminar in Fall 2015, as well as to Fernando’s detailed comments on an earlier draft. Beyond the academy, I owe much gratitude to all my friends and family, especially Mom, Dad, Pete, Aida, Dana, Jake, Dan, and Kat. They’ve all done more than they know just by being there for me. Finally, thank you to Mary, who is always ready to let me sound out an idea, who talks me through the hurdles, deals with all the dramas, shares with me each success, and who has brought joy into my life every day over the last six years. When everything else looked dim, her light made this work, and so much more, possible. I dedicate this dissertation to everyone who is fighting to build a new world amidst the ruins of the old, especially those in Bolivia and throughout Latin America today who risk everything to do so. In the end, this project is about thinking possibilities that can only be realized through collective struggle on a global scale. If viii I’ve managed to illuminate some of these, they belong to all of us; any shortcomings, however, are all mine. ix Preface On November 10, 2019, the Bolivian military “suggested” that President Evo Morales resign. Faced with an implicit threat of violence, Evo and his Vice President Álvaro García Linera complied. This coup – it can have no other name – marked a disgraceful end to a nearly twenty-year cycle of social rebellion and political change. Like any other historical upheaval that plays out over such a long period and involves so many people, the Bolivian political experience in the last two decades included mass demonstrations, electoral contests, strikes, disruptions, democratic experiments, threats of reaction, friendly disagreements, vicious antagonisms, moments of unity, moments of confusion, shifting allegiances, instances of violence, unexpected