Caudillos of the New Frontier

In his latest book, Professor Robert J. Alexander of Rutgers has provided hagiographic profiles of twelve Latin American politicians. Unlike the more old-fashioned caudillos, these twelve have created mass movements of discontent to place themselves and their cliques in power. The ideological fare they have served consists of warmed-over scraps of Communist, Nazi, socialist, fascist, populist and anarcho-syndicalist theory, borrowed without acknowledgment, blended without taste and adulterated to appeal to the intellectual immaturity and seething resentment so often characteristic of the Latin American intelligentsia of the Left.

According to Alexander, “The men discussed in these pages have all sought to lead their countries through a basic transformation, to bring them into the twentieth century. . . . Furthermore, these men have all been indigenous social reformers. . . . They have all been nationalists in politics and in intellectual inspiration.” Alexander’s dozen includes both Lázaro Cárdenas and Fidel Castro, though Lombardo Toledano is excluded as “part of the international communist movement.” From this, one might infer that Castro is not a Communist, yet on page 286 we learn that the barbudo brought Cuba “into the communist bloc” partly at least because the sensitive fellow believed the U.S. didn’t like his regime.

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Nathaniel Weyl

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In his latest book, Professor Robert J. Alexander of Rutgers has provided hagiographic profiles of twelve Latin American politicians. Unlike the more old-fashioned caudillos, these twelve have created mass movements of discontent to place themselves and their cliques in power. The ideological fare they have served consists of warmed-over scraps of Communist, Nazi, socialist, fascist, populist and anarcho-syndicalist theory, borrowed without acknowledgment, blended without taste and adulterated to appeal to the intellectual immaturity and seething resentment so often characteristic of the Latin American intelligentsia of the Left.

According to Alexander, “The men discussed in these pages have all sought to lead their countries through a basic transformation, to bring them into the twentieth century. . . . Furthermore, these men have all been indigenous social reformers. . . . They have all been nationalists in politics and in intellectual inspiration.” Alexander’s dozen includes both Lázaro Cárdenas and Fidel Castro, though Lombardo Toledano is excluded as “part of the international communist movement.” From this, one might infer that Castro is not a Communist, yet on page 286 we learn that the barbudo brought Cuba “into the communist bloc” partly at least because the sensitive fellow believed the U.S. didn’t like his regime.