2010: Mario Vargas Llosa

Arequipa, Perú, 1936-

Isn't this book an education of left-wing splinter groups in 1950s Peru?  I must confess that my knowledge on this topic is finite, and so I've done a bit of research in order to help me understand the pedantic differences.



The Stalinists and the Trotskyites are both Marxist:  They look to implement socialism with a proletarian revolution, and gain equality of the working class and the bourgeois, namely by taking back the land.  However Trotsky argued for a vanguard party for the working class, working-class self-emancipation, proletarian internationalization, and mass democracy.  Conversely a Stalinist believes in an overly-centralized state with a totalitarian figure head, secret police, and propaganda.  It is associated with a regime of terror.  According to Trotskyites, Stalinism is a bureaucratized degenerated worker's state, where the needs of the few outweigh the needs of the many.  In short they're like the Montague’s and the Capulet’s.

Maoism is a form of Marxism originating in China that, like Stalinism, is “anti-revisionist”, meaning that it's not looking to change the system (and therefore it is also anti-Trotskyism).  A Maoist believes that fixing the social system is the road to capitalism, an “if it ain't broke...” sort of idea.

The Revolutionary Worker's Party aka the Marxist Workers Group, with whom Mayta is affiliated with in the book, is the first Trotskyite political party in Peru.

The APRA is the Alianza Popular Revolucionaria Americana, the oldest political party in Peru and the most established.  In the 2006 election they brought in 22.6% of the popular vote. Their politics-centre-left, democratic, and socialist- were toned down in the 50s so that the party could achieve legal status.

Pabloism is based on a man named Michel Pablo who formed an international communist party in Europe called “The Forth international”, with the goal to help the working class bring about socialism.  Not all socialists supported his politics though, and in 1953, those opposed started “The International Committee to the Forth Action”.  A person who is hostile toward the ICFI is known as a Pabloist.