Jose Carlos Mariategui

Jose Carlos Mariategui La Chira, sometimes called El Amauta in Peru, was a Peruvian politician and Marxist writer, born in 1894 and died in 1930. A prolific author despite his early death, he is considered one of the greatest scholars of Latin America, and his Seven Interpretive Essays on Peruvian Reality, published in 1928, became a reference work for the intelligentsia of the continent. He founded the Peruvian Socialist Party and the General Confederation of Workers of Peru in 1928 and 1929 respectively; the party initially adhered to a syndicalist-influenced socialism before being reformed after his death as the Peruvian Communist Party in line with Communist International policy and Marxism-Leninism, and in 1930 the wing loyal to Mariategui split off to form the Socialist Party of Peru. The sociologist and philosopher Michael Lowy called him undoubtedly the most vigorous and original Marxist thinker Latin America has ever known, and the Argentine philosopher and cultural critic Jose Pablo Feinmann declared him the greatest Latin American Marxist philosopher.