Marxismo, populismo y raza en Cuba. Una mirada desde América Latina (1920-1940)

Abstract

This article focuses on the well-known polemic between Julio Antonio Melia and Víctor Raúl Haya de la Torre. In Cuba, most studies about their exchange have focused on Haya as the main spokesperson and the historiography considers Mella as the “winner” of that debate. This text offers three new points of study. First, it brings Mariátegui into the discussion. There were real reasons behind the rupture between Haya and Mariátegui, but there were also similarities that defy the schematic dichotomy generally drawn between Melia and Mariátegui. Second, it brings to the fore other actors that sit at the heart of this debate—for example, communism, aprismo, and Cuban populism—and it highlights oftentimes buried but related topics, such as the role of the question of race in Cuba. Third, it offers a reconstruction of the first consequential debate between populism and marx­ism in twentieth-century Latin American thought.