Ebook: Trotskyism in Latin America

Trotskyism has been a small but persistent force in Latin American left-
wing politics for over forty years, and Latin Americans have helped make
Trotsky's Fourth International the most long-lived dissident group within
international Communism. And yet very little serious history has been written
about Trotskyism in any part of the world, and none about its place in the
Latin American republics.
In a quarter of a century of wandering through Latin America I have met
and talked with many believers in international Trotskyism; for an even longer
period, I have known some of their counterparts in this country. Although
I have often disagreed with these persons, I believe that Trotskyism is a seri-
ous political movement, worth careful study, and that the information they
have given me, as well as the written material I have collected over several
years, may qualify me to write a short history of the movement in Latin
America.
One problem I faced in collecting data for this study was that much of
the relevant written material was of an ephemeral nature-throwaways,
mimeographed bulletins, or newspapers published in only a few
copies-which most people would not think of collecting. Another obstacle
was posed by the Fourth International's concern for secrecy. For one thing,
the use of "party names" by Fourth Internationalists has been common.