Author Description

In November 1981, the oldest political party in Mexico, The Mexican Communists Party (Partido Comunista Mexicana, or PCM) dissolved itself and together with four other left-wing parties, established the United Socialist Party of Mexico (Partido Socialista Unificado de Mexico, or PSUM) this event culminated more that ten years of debate and internal transformation during which the PCM had come to reject many of the traditional assumptions of Latin American communist parties. The most important change within the PCM in the 1970s was a new openness to the broad left. This development along with parallel developments in Venezuela has generated speculation about the impact in Latin America of Eurocommunist models. This essay assesses the validity of this kind of speculation by examining Eurocommunist models and the context of political transformation.