Trotsky & Latin America: an approach to the Bonapartism concept

Abstract

In the following paper, through reading the writings in the Mexican exile addressing Latin America's problems, we analyze the elaborated category of Bonapartism proposed by Trotsky. At first, we explore some elements of the reference text from where the concept of –The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte by Marx–and then focus on Trotsky´s given use to analyze the reality of Latin America in the early and mid XX century. Some of the postures that can be seen as a change of Marx´s perspective when analyzing non-Western realities reappear around the idea of Bonapartism, in relation to a Latin American case that should stop thinking about the European model. This approach allows us to deepen the problem of translatability of specific historical junctures, which are central to unravelling the history of “mismatch” between the left and the Latin American populism.