#The Comintern and the Question of Race in the South American Andes

[justanotherwastedyouth]

Racism was a very real problem that needed to be confronted before class solidarity could be built, but the two forms of identity were deeply intertwined. Marxists still experienced difficulties in conceptualizing issues of racial identity, with many militants considering it to be a form of false consciousness that distracted from the more important proletarian class struggle. Nevertheless, in terms of lived experiences, race and ethnicity repeatedly overpowered class in debates over which was more important. Mariátegui noted that Indigenous peoples, for good reason, often viewed mestizos as their oppressors, and only the development of a class consciousness could break through the racial hatred that divided these groups.

Marc Becker, “The Comintern and the Question of Race in the South American Andes” in Left Transnationalism: The Communist International and the National, Colonial, and Racial Questions, ed. Oleksa Drachewych and Ian McKay (Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2019), 277.