This article introduces the issue by analyzing trends within theories associated with the ideas of dependency and the relationship between dependency and Marxist theories. It then focuses on dependency theories used as an ideology of the nationalist bourgeoisie. The article serves as a link between the dependency debate to date, and the new contributions to this discussion presented in the articles in this issue.There is no such thing as a single unified body of thought called dependency theory, and any common ground between those who share the terminology of dependency tends to dissolve as the importance of the differences between them become greater. The earliest writers who used dependency concepts in the early 1960s (Chilcote and Edelstein, 1974;Chilcote, 1974) began revising the desarrollista concepts associated with the UN Economic Commission on Latin America (ECLA) primarily on the questions of import-substitution industrialization as the primary technique of overcoming underdevelopment. The ECLA ideas were representative of the national bourgeois attempt to achieve independence and development, but they played right into the hands of foreign capital in the form of multinational corporations which were moving rapidly into Latin America and taking over the new industrialization. This new industrialization resulted in severe economic problems and a weakening of the very national bourgeoisie which had originally promoted it. Dependency ideas were then initially a defensive response on the part of the national bourgeoisie. At the same time dependency theorists were reacting to and criticizing the political theories of Latin American communist parties erroneously referred to as &dquo;traditional Marxism.&dquo; In view of the development of the revolutions in Cuba, China, Vietnam, and Algeria, the communist analysis was found to be Downloaded from 4 sterile in providing revolutionary direction. The communists had long held to a position of two-stage revolution based on the assumption that Latin America was primarily feudal and that bourgeois revolutions (the first stage) led by a nationalist bourgeoisie had to be supported by the working class so that capitalism could be built, leading to the second stage of socialist revolution sometime in the future (Lowy, 1975). This led to postponing a struggle for socialism and a very reformist policy of allying with bourgeois regimes which repeatedly betrayed the interests of the working class. The dependentistas were returning to the Marxist view set forth by Lenin and Trotsky which analyzed imperialism as having spread capitalism throughout the world, but not permitting the local bourgeoisie to develop strength in the underdeveloped areas. Imperialism had thus created a situation requiring a socialist revolution in underdeveloped countries led by the working class, with the peasantry playing a crucial role in the revolutionary process. Both Marxists and non-Marxists within the broad spectrum of thought encompassed by the dependency framework engaged in a kind of dialogue...

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Democracy, democratization, and their relationship to class struggle and revolutionary movements have become vital issues since the demise of numerous military governments throughout Latin America. This process began in the mid-1970s and is as yet incomplete since military dictators still rule Chile and Paraguay. A previous issue of Latin American Perspectives, &dquo;State and Military in Latin America&dquo; (1985), published a series of articles analyzing the crises that engendered military regimes in the region and the contradictions that resulted.Debates on the nature of democratization and the strategies to be followed by the new electoral regimes rage throughout the Latin American political spectrum. Thus far in the United States, discussion has been dominated by liberals and partisans of the electoral regimes.This issue of Latin American Perspectives broadens the debate and opens the process to a critical analysis.The U.S. government and much of the political science establishment discuss democratization in terms of the replacement of military regimes with formal electoral democracies. According to this view, for a country to qualify as democratic the property rights of the wealthy must be guaranteed, their access to political power through the financing of political parties must be preserved, and the country must be kept open to the free operation of international capitalists.

Harry Vanden's article deals with some important questions around the role of the peasantry in the revolutionary process in Latin America and the relationship of Marxist theory to the peasantry. He voices a frequently heard impatience with the failure of revolutionary organization in most of Latin America to successfully incorporate the masses into effective revolutionary action. Unfortunately, I feel that he neither clarifies the theoretical problems nor accurately reflects the historical record.His recurring theme, that Marxism has failed to deal effectively with peasants because of the bias of the Western, &dquo;urban&dquo; Marx and his followers, does not help us to understand the place of the peasantry in Marxist theory, and is contradicted by the many Marxists cited by Vanden himself (Engels, Lenin, Mao, Guevara, Mariategui, Blanco, etc.) who deal seriously with the peasant role in revolution. Vanden's primary evidence for Marxism's antipeasant bias is based on the correct observation that Marxist writing identifies the working class as the only class capable of leading a revolution which can overthrow capitalism. However, Marxists have not argued that peasants are not combative, radical, and even revolutionary against both precapitalist or capitalist regimes. Vanden fails to address the theoretical reasons for the specific role of peasants in relation to the working class in Marxist theory, although he does quote Marx and Lenin who explain the difference between workers and peasants in relation to production in capitalism. To reiterate, in Marxist theory the working class is the only class capable of leading a revolution to overthrow capitalism and institute socialism because only the working class, born with capitalism, develops irreconcilable contradictions with the capitali'st class which can be resolved only with the destruction of capitalism.Workers' consciousness of the need for socialism grows out of their experience in capitalist production. In contrast to Vanden's romantic attachment to peasant radicalism, according to Marxist theory peasants do not achieve consciousness of the need to overthrow capitalism through their

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