Abstract
The case of the Tupamaros of Uruguay can be viewed as an example of revolutionaries who rank somewhere in the middle in terms of their success. They did not seize state power outright through an armed insurrection nor did they completely control the state through an outright electoral victory of their own. Rather they gained access to state as members of a broad coalition, the (Frente Amplio or Broad Front) that was victorious in the 2005 elections. The “long road to power” however, involved the Tupamaros making compromises in terms of their commitment to socialism, for as members of the Frente Amplio-Frente Amplio- Encuentro Progresista (Broad Front-Progressive Encounter) they adopted a more nationalist, pragmatic, and moderate program.
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Notes
The literature on the Tupamaros is rather extensive. For the early period see Carlos Nuñez, “The Tupamaros: Armed Vanguard in Uruguay,” Tricontinental (Havana) 10 (January–February 1969), pp. 43–66 and
M. Rosencof, La Rebelión de los Caneros (Montevideo, Uruguay: Aportes, 1969). For later activity and documents see:
Antonio Mercader and Jorge de Vera, Tupamaros: Estrategía y Acción–Iinforme (Mexico, D.F.: Ediciones Era, 1971); Actas Tupamaros (Buenos Aires: Shapiro Editor, 1971);
Labrousse, Los Tupamaros: Guerrilla Urbana en el Uruguay (Buenos Aires: Tiempo Contemporaneo, 1971);
Maria Esther Gilio, The Tupamaro Guerrillas: The Structure and Strategy of the Urban Guerrilla Movement (New York: Saturday Review Press, 1972);
Donald C. Hodges, ed., Philosophy of the Urban Guerrilla: The Revolutionary Writings of Abraham Guillén (New York: William Morrow and Co., 1973); and José A. Moreno and Arturo C. Porzecanski, “The Ideology of Uruguay’s Tupamaros,” unpublished essay in the Departments of Sociology and Economics, University of Pittsburgh, 1972. For articles in English see:
S. Connoly and G. Druehl, “The Tupamaros: The New Focus in Latin America,” Journal of Contemporary Revolutions 3, 3 (Summer 1971), pp. 59–68;
F. M. Poland, “Uruguay’s Urban Guerrillas,” New Leader 54, 19 (October 4, 1971), pp. 8–11;
R. Moss, “Urban Guerrillas in Uruguay,” Problems of Communism 20, 5 (September–October 1971), pp. 14–23.
“Carta Abierta a la Policía,” printed in Epoca, December 7, 1967. Reprinted in Luis Costa Bonino, Crisis de los Partidos Tradicionales y Movimiento Revolucionario en el Uruguay (Montevideo, Uruguay: Ediciones de la Banda Oriental, 1985), p. 102 and Mercarder and de Vera, Tupamaros: Estrategía y Acción, p. 131. Author’s translation.
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© 2007 Kalowatie Deonandan, David Close, and Gary Prevost
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Weinstein, M. (2007). The Left’s Long Road to Power in Uruguay. In: Deonandan, K., Close, D., Prevost, G. (eds) From Revolutionary Movements to Political Parties. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230609778_4
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