The Role Of Imperialism In Latin America

Marxism was sweeping across Latin America during the 20th century and acted as a stand to Capitalism and the United States. According to John Chasteen, a professor of history at the University of North Carolina, says this about Latin Americans adopting Marxist-ideas, “to adopt Marxism meant basically one thing: to side with the weal and impoverished masses against the rich minority and the US multinational corporations.” Latin America was fully influenced by imperialism and their society was shaped by imperialism especially by the United States. Vladimir Lenin was the one who realized that, “capitalism had reached a state unforeseen by Marx, the stage of imperialism.” Lenin recognized that imperial capitalists, “had seized much of the “backward” world from which they [the capitalists] extracted “super profits.”” Therefore, Latin Americans were primarily concerned with ridding themselves of the imperial powers that plagued their lands since the Spanish colonial times. Latin America used Leninism-Marxism as a way of escaping their imperial past and as a way for continuing into the future. This paper will attempt to rationalize Leninism-Marxism as it developed in Cuba and Argentina, it will look towards autonomism as an alternative to Capitalism and Marxism, and it will acknowledge the US and how their views of Marxism skewed their actions in Latin America, especially in Cuba.
As much as Latin America was affected by Marx and Marxism, Cuban politics were predominantly affiliated with Leninist ideas and fused those with Marxism and Socialism to create something completely