This paper discusses the meaning of revolution in Latin America as presented by several sources.
This paper explains that, in Latin America, revolution starts from the dichotomy of elite city-people and folk country-people. The author points out that the sources speak of revolutions using different specific definitions, but overall, there is one central theme: the people who are involved in the action, whether it is called ?uprising,? ?upheaval,? ?movement? or ?revolution,? are not content with the existing situation and want a drastic and far-reaching change. The paper relates that, to gain satisfaction, the disenchanted will act in a number of different ways, from something as harmless as marching, to impeachment, to something as radical as a complete overthrow of the government, with sacrifices minimal or significant, depending on the approach.
“Argentina specialist James Petras, in an article entitled Popular Struggle in Argentina: Full Circle and Beyond, discusses how in December 19, 2001 hundreds of thousands of the impoverished middle-class, pensioners, unemployed workers, and trade union activists converged on the presidential palace in the Plaza de Mayo demanding the ouster of Fernando de la Rua. Petras says that although some leftists in Buenos Aires boasted that this was a pre-revolutionary situation, he instead saw it as a spontaneous mass rebellion or uprising with a limited agenda. To the contrary, the leftist trade union leaders in Rio Turbio, unlike the Marxists in Buenos Aires, did not see the December 2001 popular uprising as a pre-revolutionary situation because, they argued, “there was no revolutionary structure then or now.””