ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the social revolutionary processes that unfolded in die four modern Latin American revolutions: Bolivia, 1952-1956; Cuba, 1959-1969; Nicaragua, 1979-1990; and Grenada, 1979-1983. Consolidation and institutionalization are most usefully understood as paths that revolutionaries choose to follow in the period after political victory. As such, institutionalization and consolidation should be discernible within the social revolutionary process. The social revolutionary leadership, a small cadre of revolutionaries within the vanguard party, is thus essential to social revolution; the significance of their role is evident in the ensuing discussion. Social revolutionaries seek to build and maintain popular support across all the phases of the social revolutionary process. Riding the crest of the revolutionary process, the National Revolutionary Movement (MNR) leaders found themselves in what they perceived as their rightful position. The core MNR leadership took the lessons of the Mexican revolution seriously and was convinced that the strong one-party state that had emerged there would guarantee the success of that process.
