Comment faire la révolution en Amérique latine ?: Les communistes chiliens face à la révolution cubaine (1959-1970)

francaisDans les annees 1960, loin de constituer un conflit purement bipolaire gauche/droite, la guerre froide en Amerique latine engendre aussi des tensions au sein du marxisme continental. La revolution cubaine, qui definit des 1960 un schema theorique (le foco) defiant le « communisme orthodoxe » incarne par l’URSS, n’est pas toujours percue comme un modele incontournable du communisme hemispherique. Le Parti communiste du Chili, dirige par Luis Corvalan qui prone une « voie pacifique vers la revolution », reagit face a la radicalite du discours cubain faisant de la lutte armee le seul moyen d’atteindre la victoire revolutionnaire, ce qui declenche d’intenses controverses, dont la bruyante « affaire Neruda » en 1966. EnglishDuring the 1960s, the Cold War was much more than a bipolar conflict between the Left and the Right. In Latin America, the Cold War also gave rise to tensions amongst Marxists. The Cuban Revolution, which from 1960 onwards demonstrated a revolutionary possibility (the theory of focalism) and came to challenge “orthodox Communism” as embodied by the USSR, was not always seen as the quintessential model by Latin American Communists. The Chilean Communist Party led by Luis Corvalan – who championed a peaceful path to revolution – countered Cuba’s radical discourse, which emphasised armed struggle as the only means to achieve a revolutionary victory. The notorious retaliation of Cuban Communists against Neruda in 1966 epitomised the apex of these tensions.