<\/b>By Jos\u00e9 Cruz\/El Pensativo —\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n Mario Payeras recounts in sober style the dramatic story of the defeat of the urban guerrilla front of the Guatemalan Army of the Poor (EGP \u2013 Ej\u00e9rcito Guatemalteco de los Pobres) in 1981, when two opposed military philosophies squared off in the streets of Guatemala City, sometimes clumsily, sometimes explosively.<\/span><\/p>\n The government army was supported by Argentine and Israeli intelligence, financed by the US government through allies like the Taiwanese military dictatorship, and led by generals who systematized a counter-insurgency strategy that deployed ferocious tactics against their own people. It eventually succeeded in protecting the privileges of the old oligarchy and the new military caste. This reactionary alliance aimed to defeat the urban front of the EGP, a guerrilla structure that, like all those of the URNG (National Revolutionary Unit of Guatemala \u2013 Unidad Revolucionaria Nacional Guatemalteca), developed its conspiratory methods, tactical training, discipline regimen, operational strategy, and overall orientation from an uncritical assimilation of the Cuban experience.<\/span><\/p>\n Mario\u2019s analyses of this and other chapters in the guerrillas\u2019 struggle, in this book as well as another of his major works, The Rifles of October, constitute the most serious and enlightening questioning of the conceptual and ideological foundations of the Guatemalan left\u2019s actions during the 70s and 80s. Payeras provides the keys to understanding the failure of the guerrillas\u2019 revolutionary project. Confronting the political and military power of the plantation state with a military apparatus detached from the political action of the masses was an effort in superhuman heroism that could not, on its own, lead to victory. This is the book\u2019s\u00a0 <\/span>fundamental lesson.<\/span><\/p>\n Even today Mario\u2019s critical theory evokes reactions saturated with displeasure and contempt. In their moment, criticisms from Mario and his compatriots of the Octubre Revolucionario movement, which broke away from the EGP in 1984 for philisophical reasons, represented a radical commitment to moral consistency, courage, and seriousness\u00a0 <\/span>because they focused on self-criticism and the movement\u2019s own errors. Today they remain a central contribution to the necessary but still incomplete examination of the proper role and direction of the Guatemalan left.<\/span><\/p>\n Rereading these pages fills me with nostalgia for the certainties that compelled so many to risk everything for the sake of revolution. The sacrifice and will to fight, the secrecy and the renunciation of any hope of a normal life, the faith through the intensest tests of revolutionary values, the inspiration gained from models of successful socialism, the solidarity between ordinary people and our compatriots were all real and indisputable. But in this new century they have evaporated into mist. New collections of the works of Mario Payeras have appeared just in time.<\/span><\/p>\n Yes, we lost. The lust for gold and its bloody brillance triumphed. With the defeat of the revolutionaries everyone lost, including those naive victors who proclaim victory after victory in invasion after invasion, as the rich hoard more and the poor suffer dearly in a global whirlwind of greed. They call it globalization and the free market. Their spokesmen call themselves liberals as in their zeal for theft they appropriate even our vocabulary. They calculate how long the oil will last, while we ask how long the injustice will last.<\/span><\/p>\n And we see that the problems of the city that he described still exist; inequality, racism, pollution, and violence are still problems without solutions. It is fundamentally important to study, analyze, and understand the successes and the failures of those who have already tried.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Cover photo: CIRMA By Jos\u00e9 Cruz\/El Pensativo —\u00a0 Mario Payeras recounts in sober style the dramatic story of the defeat of the urban guerrilla front of the Guatemalan Army of the Poor (EGP \u2013 Ej\u00e9rcito Guatemalteco de los Pobres) in 1981, when two opposed military philosophies squared off in the streets of Guatemala City, sometimes […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1560,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[446],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2417","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-literature"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.entremundos.org\/revista\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/60-006-249-copia.jpg?fit=2886%2C1932&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7ljt7-CZ","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2831,"url":"https:\/\/www.entremundos.org\/revista\/world\/colombia-between-surrealism-and-peace\/?lang=en","url_meta":{"origin":2417,"position":0},"title":"Colombia: Between surrealism and peace","author":"EntreMundos","date":"24 octubre, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Cover Picture:\u00a0A man places a flower on a Colombian national flag during a march along the streets of Cali, Colombia, on July 15, 2016, in support of the peace talks between the government of Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos and the FARC guerrillas (AFP Photo\/Luis Robayo) By\u00a0Ollantay Itzamn\u00e1 We watched\u2026","rel":"","context":"En \u00abFrontPage\u00bb","block_context":{"text":"FrontPage","link":"https:\/\/www.entremundos.org\/revista\/category\/frontpage-en\/?lang=en"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.entremundos.org\/revista\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/541e314b94df76a1a4fb622650383ba473049e0d.jpg?fit=800%2C562&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.entremundos.org\/revista\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/541e314b94df76a1a4fb622650383ba473049e0d.jpg?fit=800%2C562&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.entremundos.org\/revista\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/541e314b94df76a1a4fb622650383ba473049e0d.jpg?fit=800%2C562&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.entremundos.org\/revista\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/541e314b94df76a1a4fb622650383ba473049e0d.jpg?fit=800%2C562&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":6324,"url":"https:\/\/www.entremundos.org\/revista\/youth\/no-more-child-soldiers-as-tools-of-war\/?lang=en","url_meta":{"origin":2417,"position":1},"title":"No more child soldiers as tools of war!","author":"EntreMundos","date":"12 febrero, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Today, February 12, marks the International Day against the use of Child Soldiers, a date to remember the children that are recruited every day to participate in armed conflicts. 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If the bones of the dead speak why should the living be quiet? -Humberto Ak\u2019 abal, K\u2019iche\u2019 Maya poet (1952-2019) By Jason Klarl It\u2019s dawn, or maybe dusk.\u00a0 A young guerrillero in the EGP holds a machine gun\u2026","rel":"","context":"En \u00abCorruption\u00bb","block_context":{"text":"Corruption","link":"https:\/\/www.entremundos.org\/revista\/category\/politics\/corruption\/?lang=en"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.entremundos.org\/revista\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/167.jpg?fit=1200%2C797&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.entremundos.org\/revista\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/167.jpg?fit=1200%2C797&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.entremundos.org\/revista\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/167.jpg?fit=1200%2C797&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.entremundos.org\/revista\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/167.jpg?fit=1200%2C797&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.entremundos.org\/revista\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/167.jpg?fit=1200%2C797&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1940,"url":"https:\/\/www.entremundos.org\/revista\/politics\/this-is-just-the-beginning\/?lang=en","url_meta":{"origin":2417,"position":5},"title":"A new alliance called \u00abThis is just the beginning!\u00bb","author":"EntreMundos","date":"10 noviembre, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"This year\u2019s massive social mobilizations in Guatemala won\u2019t just become history; they have a future, as the October 15th event \u201cThis is Just the Beginning\u201d showed in Guatemala City. 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