ABSTRACT
The three perspectives—moral economy, political economy, and class conflict—are not products of idiosyncracies of the Vietnamese case but rather of regularities in the structure of social movement theory. The guerrillas' success in the Central Highlands reflects deep-seated changes in the social structure of rural Guatemala which created the possibility for an Indian political mobilization. The regional distribution of revolutionary activity in Guatemala, the second case of peasant revolution, does permit such a distinction. The Lowlands departments of Helvetia de Retalhuleu, Suchitepequez, and Escuintla are major destinations for highland migrants and it is here that most of Guatemala's export crops are produced, and these crops are the Guatemalan economy. The concentration of the contemporary guerrilla movement in the Central Highlands, the Tonkin or perhaps even the Nghe An-Ha Tinh of Guatemala, would seem at first examination to provide considerable support for moral economy.
