ABSTRACT
A long period of agrarian oligarchic rule from the colonial era, through post-independence, and up to the mid-twentieth century generated considerable resentment on the part of Peru’s exploited and largely indigenous peasantry. The example of the Cuban Revolution inspired peasant insurrection in the Andes; in response, the government instituted a programme of ‘national developmentalism’, including extensive agrarian reform from the late 1960s through the 1970s. The achievements of the agrarian reform, while insufficient to resolve the problem of peasant access to land and national food security, were in any case subsequently undermined by a long period of neoliberalism. From the 1990s especially, Peru was opened up to imperial extractive capital, supported by a comprador bourgeoisie with no interest in nationally focused development. The peasantry and indigenous groups have seen their livelihoods further eroded and marginalized during this period. The election of the leftist Pedro Castillo in 2022 offered a beacon of hope to these subaltern groups, only to be extinguished by the combined forces of the right, underpinned by extractive capital.
