TO
lonso aguilar Monteverde (1922-2012) was an honest social scientist and consistent revolutionary. From a very young age and throughout his life he devoted himself to the fight for the best causes of the peoples of the world, especially Mexico and Latin America; he was a tireless researcher of its historical processes and a student of Marxism. His thought was always far from dogmatism and positions doctrinal
. For him, a true social science is based on the concrete study of concrete reality
, a postulate that he exemplarily put into practice. But at the same time, he never accepted simplistic ideas and was critical of opportunism and verbal radicalism, and with his work he was self-critical and always capable of correcting ideas.
Of his extensive work we will only highlight a few topics: he contributed valuable works on the development of capitalism in Mexico and Latin America; he published several articles and books on the capitalism of underdevelopment, the ruling-dominated class and structural dependency; the Mexican State, bourgeoisie and oligarchy; The imperialism; the current crisis of capitalism; state capitalism and state monopoly capitalism; developmentalist, neo-developmentalist and neoliberal policies; the real causes of poverty, inequality and the concentration of wealth; the class struggle; popular and national sovereignty; bourgeois nationalism; Latin American independence, democracy and integration; the program, organization and unity of the progressive forces; revolutionary transformation and socialism; the crisis, socialism and its fall in Eastern Europe, and the need to rescue Mexican and Latin American social thought, as well as the struggle for a new social order that ends the exploitation of man by man and the irrational exploitation of society. nature.
Maestro Aguilar dedicated a large part of his life to getting to know the country, supporting multiple popular struggles and promoting the creation of various research, cultural and political action organizations with a progressive and revolutionary profile: with Narciso Bassols and other important personalities he promoted the magazine Index, and at another time the Circle of Mexican Studies. He participated prominently in the Conference for National Sovereignty, Economic Emancipation and Peace, headed by General Lázaro Cárdenas, and was national coordinator of the National Liberation Movement (MLN), from its creation in 1961 to 1964 (the best years of this organization). Together with other prominent thinkers, social activists and young progressives, he built the Editorial Nuestro Tiempo, the magazine Strategy and the Movement of the Mexican People; the Center for Research and National Studies (CIEN), the Association for the Unity of Our America (AUNA) and the Mexican Center for Social Studies, among many other organizations of which he was the architect and who worked the most in them. The last year of his life accompanied the first steps of the magazine united people.
All his efforts were committed to defending the interests of the nation and the people. He supported the Cuban revolution, the struggles of the Latin American peoples and all the just causes of which he was aware. In 1988, 1994 and 2000 he actively participated in the electoral campaigns of Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, he always supported the indigenous struggles and in particular the Zapatista uprising and his movement; likewise, the campaigns of Andrés Manuel López Obrador in 2000 and 2006.
Those of us who knew him know that he would have been enthusiastic about the triumph of the progressive and leftist forces in 2018, as well as the launch of a popular program contrary to the neoliberal imposed on Mexico in the past almost four decades, but he would also have begun to analyze the scope and orientation of the changes and the importance of the popular movement triumphing again in 2024, deepening the program and strengthening the organization, unity and mobilization of popular forces.
The thought of master Alonso Aguilar was contrary to dogmatism, but also to pragmatism; he used to say that there is nothing better for a good practice than a good theory
, and for him the true revolutionary theory is not only that which is in the books, but above all that which arises from the struggle and the knowledge of reality. Today, in the face of the new and changing national, Latin American and world situation, it is important to highlight his contributions, to make his work known among workers in the countryside and the city, in universities and popular organizations. The analysis of this work will surely allow young people to discover a beacon to focus on the possible routes of their struggles in our time.
* Doctor in anthropology and author of Half a century of social struggles and political culture in Mexico.
