Radical Thought in Central America by Sheldon B Liss

Author:Sheldon B Liss [Liss, Sheldon B]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Political Science, General
ISBN: 9781000308860
Google: TgeiDwAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 49789164
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2019-07-11T00:00:00+00:00

Manuel Mora: The "Red Pope"

For more than half a century, Manuel Mora (1910-) and communism have been synonymous in Costa Rica. A descendant of Spanish conquistadores, Mora was bom in San José. His father held various governmental posts and then fell upon hard times. At an early age Mora rebelled against social injustice and his family's suffering. He noted how the Russian Revolution dealt with social problems and examined what he considered to be the revolutionary message of his countryman Jorge Volio, the Reformist party founder who spoke against the wealthy and social inequities. Mora studied law and immersed himself in the writings of Kropotkin, Marx, Engels, and Lenin. In 1928 he founded the Revolutionary Culture Association, the Marxist discussion circle mentioned in the introduction to this chapter,75 and the following year he started the Communist party of Costa Rica. He prepared for political battles by becoming familiar with the thinking of noteworthy liberals and radicals. His ideas reflect the influence of Bolívar on independence, the antiimperialism of Haya de la Torre, and the thought of British economist John Hobson, who made the first systematic analysis of imperialism and gave it a basically economic interpretation. Mora particularly liked Dollar Diplomacy (1925), the classic study of U.S. imperialism by North American radicals Scott Nearing and Joseph Freeman. He also believed that English socialist thinker Harold Laski's depiction of the typical Englishman as a merchant who wants more applied to Costa Ricans as well.76

Mora's compatriots regard him as "our Red Pope," a man for all seasons who has served the nation as ideological mentor, polemicist, and congressional deputy. He has devoted his life to politics and to the transformation of the social order while defending Costa Rican sovereignty vociferously.77 The author of numerous articles and pamphlets, Mora is respected by his most ardent opponents as a vigorous idealist. Although not an original thinker, he is held in high regard by most sectors of society as a tireless champion of the people, an effective politician, and an honest spokesman for the Communist party.

He served as a deputy in the Legislative Assembly from 1934 to 1948 and again from 1970 to 1974, helped lead the semisuccessful banana workers' strike against the United Fruit Company in 1934, and ran for the presidency in 1940 and 1974. During the 1948 civil war, he led the Communists in an alliance with Calderón's forces against Figueres. When the opposition won, the Communist party was outlawed and Mora went into exile. He returned in 1949 and by 1953 had built the General Confederation of Workers.

Mora began communicating his ideas in 1930 through the newspaper Revolución, run by his law school colleagues and antiimperialist groups. He asked why in Costa Rica, with plentiful food, water, minerals, and good climate, children died of malnutrition. He concluded that the problem could only be solved by building a government of the people, and not by electoral democracy alone.78

With the assistance of Carlos Luis Fallas, Mora began to proselytize for the Communist party among the banana workers in 1931.

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