Classroom Maoists

The Politics of Peruvian Schoolteachers under Military Government

Bibliographic Data

ID4926720
AuthorsAlan Angell (corresponding author)
Year1982
Volume1
Issue2
Pages1
Publication date1982-05-01
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueBulletin of Latin American Research (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0261-3050 • E-ISSN: 1470-9856
PublisherJSTOR (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.2307/3338537
OpenAlexW2324033372
LanguageEN
Citations received23

Peru has witnessed many and profound changes in her political, economic and social system since the advent of a military government in 1968 determined to reform rather than maintain the status quo. The sight of a poor dependent country attempting a reform programme of some originality attracted a great deal of scholarly interest both nationally and abroad. A series of important, thorough and well known studies examined the economic history of the country, its political economy, especially its agrarian structure, and the behaviour of the military. Other aspects, especially in the realm of politics, remain neglected. We still lack an adequate study of the Apra party for example. Another area of neglect lies in the investigation of union and popular movements. Studying labour movements in countries like Peru is not easy if one intends to go beyond a recital of dates of formation of unions and of early strikes. There is often a temptation to assume, rather than demonstrate, the existence of a working class with clearly defined political ideas and behaviour. There is an even stronger temptation to ascribe to that small minority who are organized a vanguard role in popular struggles. But that can be very misleading in a country like Peru where popular struggles simply cannot be reduced to industrial or work conflict. Any real understanding of the political activities of the urban and rural poor must consider such actions in their cultural and economic context, broadly defined. We need to know a great deal more about where workers come from, how they are recruited into employment, how mobile they are, how they relate to their often rural backgrounds, how the family economy is organized, how they see themselves and their society, and what form of political action they find most appropriate. Such questions are not difficult to pose, but they are difficult to answer. Attempts to answer them come from studies of the mining and sugar sectors, and there are some impressive studies of these groups as there are of shanty towns.l But urban workers in the service sector, especially in the public sector, tend to be ignored. Given the importance of public sector unions since 1968 and given the associated growth of the Maoist left, it is important to try to evaluate the aims and activities of such groups. Amongst the public sector unions by far the most important were the schoolteachers, organized in the Sindicato Unico de los Trabajadores de la Educacion Peruana (SUTEP

Context (archaeology · Development economics · Economic growth · Economics · Government (linguistics · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Status quo · Temptation · International Relations in Latin America · Latin American socio-political dynamics · Law · Political and Social Dynamics in Chile and Latin America

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