This article analyzes the sketches of Ernesto “Che” Guevara and fellow guerrillas made by the Argentine Ciro Bustos during his captivity in Bolivia in 1967. Many of the references to Bustos in biographies of Guevara and in writings about the latter’s failed Bolivian campaign depict Bustos, because of those sketches, as “the man who betrayed Che.” The tensions and discrepancies in those accounts suggest instead that Bustos’s sketches should be seen not merely as documents of betrayal but as artworks embedded in the period’s wider revolutionary visualities. The article argues that Bustos’s drawing of Che Guevara, who is usually depicted visually as “heroic guerrilla” or “saintly martyr,” introduces an affective, intimate gaze of armed struggle in all its complications.

At a time when Cuban immigrants are seeking political asylum at historically unprecedented rates, most press and scholarly accounts consistently mirror earlier portrayals of Cubans’ mass exodus from the island in one key aspect: they ascribe to refugees a primarily economic reason for their decision to leave and offer little discussion of political factors. To illuminate the need for such analysis, this article examines the Mariel Boatlift of 1980, when approximately 125,000 Cubans, most of them thirty years old or younger, left Cuba. No other exodus of Cubans was more demonized than the Mariel, both by Cuba’s supporters and leadership and by exile opponents of the communist state. Exploring how the intensification of ideological criteria for inclusion in the Cuban Revolution undermined the quality of Cubans’ liberation under socialism prior to Mariel, this article explores state policies and the deep politicization of everyday life and identity. Key political factors explain many young people’s alienation and the degree to which the Cuban state sanctioned and directed extreme measures of repression to discredit those who wanted to leave as lazy, sexually degenerate escoria (human trash).

During the 1960s, the Cuban government attempted to play a leadership role within the Latin American Left. In the process Cuban leaders departed from Marxist−Leninist orthodoxy, garnering harsh criticism from their Soviet and Chinese allies. Yet Cuba found a steadfast supporter of its controversial positions in North Korea. This support can in large part be explained by the parallels between Cuban and North Korean ideas about revolution in the developing nations of the Global South. Most significantly, both parties embraced a radical reconceptualisation of the role of the Marxist−Leninist vanguard party. This new doctrine appealed primarily to younger Latin American militants frustrated with the established leftist parties and party politics in general. The Cuban/North Korean theory of the party had a tangible influence in Colombia, Peru, Brazil, Puerto Rico, El Salvador, Mexico, Bolivia and Nicaragua, as revolutionary groups in these societies took up arms in the 1960s and 1970s.

This paper studies the spatial deployment of temporary settlements in Extremadura in 1932-1933 and 1936. The literature has stressed the role of bottom-up forces driving settlements in 1933 and 1936, perhaps making land reform in Extremadura an interesting case study of local collective action-driving policy implementation in a developing economy. Contrary to this view, we argue that there was an equal or more important role of the top-down, programmatic design of land occupations, which explains a large share of the spatial and temporal variation of expropriations and settlements.

Using interviews with former militants and previously unpublished documents, this article traces the genesis and internal dynamics of the Ejército Revolucionario del Pueblo (People's Revolutionary Army, ERP) in El Salvador during the early years of its existence (1970–6). This period was marked by the inability of the ERP to maintain internal coherence or any consensus on revolutionary strategy, which led to a series of splits and internal fights over control of the organisation. The evidence marshalled in this case study sheds new light on the origins of the armed Salvadorean Left and thus contributes to a wider understanding of the processes of formation and internal dynamics of armed left-wing groups that emerged from the 1960s onwards in Latin America.

This article analyses the organisation of the Army of the Andes, created in Mendoza between 1814 and 1817 with the aim of reconquering Chile from the royalists. The first section studies the role of José de San Martín as an informal arbiter in Bernardo O'Higgins’ dispute with José Miguel Carrera. The aim is to explain why San Martín decided to support O'Higgins, and the immediate consequences of this alliance. The second section addresses the main characteristics of the Army of the Andes and the process of militarisation experienced by the local inhabitants. Everyday life in Mendoza became inseparable from the needs of the revolutionary army. The paper then considers the so-called guerra de zapa and the participation of irregular agents. The involvement of spies and guerrilla officers in the revolution increased as warfare intensified. The final section analyses the crossing of the cordillera by the insurgents and the revolutionary triumph of 12 February 1817 at Chacabuco.

Drawing on interviews, published sources and archival documents, this article examines Cuba's policy towards Latin America after Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara's death. It argues that as a result of this event and other setbacks in the region, Cuba reconceptualised its priorities, de-emphasised armed revolution and embraced new revolutionary processes. The results were mixed. By the mid-1970s, Havana was more disillusioned about revolutionary prospects in Latin America than ever before. However, it had also rejoined the inter-American system after more than a decade of isolation. This article asks how, why and with what consequences for Fidel Castro's stated pledge to ‘make revolution’ these shifts in Cuba's Latin American relations took place.

Liberationist Christianity in Central America has faced considerable challenges adjusting to changing circumstances since 1990. Yet the political concerns and economic conditions that animated religious movements for liberation in the region have not disappeared, nor have adherents of progressive religion. Central American Lutherans embody a distinctive dialogue with liberationist religion, one not adequately treated or understood in existing studies focused on religious change and the state. In El Salvador and Nicaragua, Lutherans adapted perspectives from liberation theology through the resources of their own theological inheritance, but both this heritage and they themselves were equally shaped and transformed by their efforts to counter, survive and redeem the inhumanity and political violence of the societies they inhabited. The Lutheran story is an important addition to the current understanding of the diverse ways in which religious communities interacted with theologies and movements of liberation, and engaged with processes of social change in the Central American context.