Democratic cojectures from Latin-American Marxism: René Zavaleta Mercado

Abstract

Acknowledging the long-lasting conflict between Marxism and the idea of democracy, this paper proposes to reconsider and re-read some approaches that address this issue. In the Latin-American context, the question about democracy was elaborated in times of civic-military dictatorships and in the middle of the “crisis” (and, in many cases, abandonment) of Marxism. René Zavaleta Mercado (1942-1984) offers a trajectory against the grain, and this paper introduces his reflections about democracy drawing from his article “Four concepts of democracy”. Zavaleta’s reconstruction of the polysemy of this concept, along with his resource to the “pre-communist” Marx, make apparent a movement of self-criticism and rectification into the grammars of historical materialism. The indigenous emergence is pivotal in this sense for both operations – Marxism’s re-adequation as well as democracy’s re-qualification.