Changing Contexts of Revolution in Latin America

The political origins of Cuban-type revolutionary pressures in Latin America are traced to the frustrations and divisions within the popular, Aprista-type parties during the mid-1950s. The failure of democratic experimentation after 1945 led to the radicalization of youthful segments of these parties and to a revived nationalist revolutionary militancy which expressed itself in anti-imperialist, anti-American terms. The consummation of this latent division among Latin American revolutionary groups after 1959, together with other changes in the internal and international political contexts, many of which are directly related to the development of the Cuban Revolution, render repetition or extension of the Cuban experience elsewhere in Latin America improbable despite the continued prevalence of violence and underdevelopment.