The past is never dead. It's not even past

Not Even Past

This is Democracy – Broadcasting Democracy

Jeremi and Zachary have a conversation with Dr. Mark Pomar on the historical impact of Voice of America, Radio Free Europe, and Radio Liberty’s critical role of radio communications during the Cold War, and the challenges they face today including the recent threats to their operation.

Zachary sets the scene with his poem, “Radio Liberty”.

Mark Pomar is a Senior Fellow at the Clements Center for National Security at the University of Texas. From 1975 to 1982, Dr. Pomar taught Russian studies at the University of Vermont. From 1982 to 1993, he worked as Assistant Director of the Russian Service at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (Munich), Director of the USSR Division at the Voice of America, and the Executive Director of the Board for International Broadcasting, a federal agency that oversaw Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. From 1994 to 2008, Dr. Pomar was a senior executive and President of IREX, a large US international nonprofit organization. From 2008 to 2017, he was the founding CEO and President of the US – Russia Foundation (USRF), a private US foundation that supported educational programs and exchanges. Dr. Pomar is the author of two books, most recently: Cold War Radio: The Russian Broadcasts of the Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. 

Review of Utopia of the Uniform: Affective Afterlives of the Yugoslav People’s Army, by Tanja Petrović (2024)

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Utopia of the Uniform is a powerful book that challenges historians to broaden their approach to the archive and their sources. It asks how affect and feeling can add nuance to our study of the past, significant historical shifts, and the future. When we met for the first time, Tanja Petrović signed my copy with the note, “To David, for all the stories and feelings he will bring to us from the Yugoslav men”. It stuck with me for some time as I wondered what that word, feeling, meant in that context. It confused me as a historian because I had not really been trained to analyze feelings rather than historical fact. However, after reading Utopia of the Uniform I am left with a sense of wonder in seeing how the author showcased the affective afterlives of the Yugoslav People’s Army and how she skillfully wove a web that connected periods of time that have traditionally been shattered in post-conflict discourse.  

To what degree is nostalgia useful for a society torn asunder by catastrophe? Perhaps a nostalgia that gazes fondly to a period prior to catastrophe might serve as a metaphorical balm, one that eases the lingering pain for the survivors of violence. Or perhaps it could serve as a temporary escape from a grim reality in which contemporary life is contrasted against life in the past, against the ‘better times’. But where does this nostalgic path lead if not to simple daydreaming? Is it capable of inspiring positive change? Tanja Petrović strives to change how scholarly discourse interacts with nostalgia in her 2024 book, Utopia of the Uniform: Affective Afterlives of the Yugoslav People’s Army.

Book cover for Utopia in Uniform

Petrović views nostalgia as an ineffectual tool of historical analysis and seeks to craft a new frame of reference for temporal progression. As such, she encourages a more nuanced investigation of historical processes and actors in both post-socialist and post-conflict societies. Utopia of the Uniform guides the reader through a nontraditional archive of felt and affective history to showcase how shared memories, photographs, and friendships continue to influence and affect the lived experience of individuals and collectives in the lands that now make up the former Yugoslavia.

To accomplish this, the author foregrounds her study in the past and present lives of male Yugoslav conscripted soldiers. By analyzing a rich archive of personal narratives, interviews, soldiers’ photography, as well as other forms of artistic and documentary expression, she claims that this archive of felt and affective history inherently possesses its own agency; an agency that Petrović argues is capable of dismantling the limitations of hegemonic ethnic binaries that politicians exploit to keep a grip on power. It is these limitations that have kept the region of the former Yugoslavia and its history wrapped “in an ethnic straightjacket” (p. 178) by binding it to the traumatic destruction of the 1990s. A time period when the fall of state socialism coincided with the rise of nationalist politicians into power (such as Serbia’s Slobodan Milošević and Croatia’s Franjo Tuđman). This shift saw warmongering nationalism call for a dramatic reorientation of society that violently bifurcated Yugoslavia’s rich ethnic and religious diversity practically at every level. By the end of the decade the wars in Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo would kill hundreds of thousands, displace millions, and destroy the social and physical infrastructure of the country. Petrović tells us that this profound pain created limiting ethnic binaries that keep this region chained to a destructive past.

Slobodan Milošević
Slobodan Milošević, former President of Serbia and President of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, 1988.
Source: Wikimedia Commons

That past, however, did not begin at the end of the 20th century. Petrović argues that the ideological motivations found within Yugoslav socialism and the way its distinctive federal system was structured allowed for the potential of a utopian perspective. The Yugoslav socialist project after World War II could be seen as unique because of the Yugoslav Partisans’ National Liberation Struggle and their self-led victory over fascist occupation. A new understanding of Yugoslavism that “acknowledged and approved enduring separate nationhoods and sought federal and other devices for a multinational state of related peoples with shared interests and aspirations” (p. 23) emerged after the war. As a result of the mass intercommunal and ethnicized violence of World War II, the new Yugoslav movement made Brotherhood and Unity (Bratstvo i jedinstvo) one of its defining pillars of legitimacy. Thus, a system that sought peace and cooperation among Croats, Serbs, Bosnian Muslims, Kosovar Albanians, Slovenians, Macedonians, and others. The JNA and the accompanying mandatory universal male conscription was a key piece of the unifying project to create Yugoslavs.

The story that Tanja Petrović tells across the book’s nine chapters (including one interlude and an epilogue) is situated along temporal lines that are not limited to narrow linear boundaries. Her narrative examines how forces of the past interacted with each other along a trajectory that moved toward an ideal future, a future that historical actors dreamt would come to fruition. However, as a result of the catastrophic violence and destruction seen in the 1990s during the Yugoslav Wars of Succession, those hopes or utopian ideals and the temporal continuum upon which they progressed was shattered. Therefore, ideal futures that were not only possible but imminent were lost forever, while this rupture forced the former soldiers and their loved ones in Petrović’s study to be left adrift (during the period she coins as the ‘event-aftermath’) in a hostile world where arbitrary ethnic or religious affiliation determines life or death, belonging or ostracization, or prosperity or neglect.

A map of Yugoslavia, 1990
Former Yugoslavia during War, a snapshot of the front lines, 1992
On the left: A map of Yugoslavia, 1990; On the right: Former Yugoslavia during War, a snapshot of the front lines, 1992.
Source: Wikimedia Commons (L), Wikimedia Commons (R)


Even three decades after the wars’ end this rupture still dictates how life in what was once Yugoslavia is lived and perceived. Petrović argues that the citizens of the states that emerged out of the the corpse of the Socialist Federal Republic (SFR) of Yugoslavia (the republics include Slovenia, Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Kosovo) live in neo-fascistic and highly ethnicized societies. Within this post-war world people face a grim present, one in which continuous governmental neglect for peoples’ livelihoods, a general disregard for their safety, and rampant corruption offers no hope for a better future. The author centers an unlikely hero in her story to serve as a utopia of hopeful thought forged in the past and lived in the present: the institution of the Yugoslav Peoples’ Army (JNA) and universal conscription of Yugoslav males for one year of military service. Utopia of the Uniform brings forth a potent contribution in that it is paradoxically within the enclosed barbed-wired bases of one of the most strict, disciplined, and conservative institutions resistant to change in SFR Yugoslavia where utopia could be found.

The bases where these soldiers served became key locations for a utopia, not necessarily because life there was perfect; in fact, Petrović discusses throughout her work that many young men felt that the army was robbing them of a year of their youth when the world was at their feet. The idea of going to someplace far away from your home, a base that was isolated from urban centers, to be molded into a good soldier with domineering discipline constantly watching your every move understandably was a source of frustration for many young Yugoslav conscripts. However, the early foundational leadership of the JNA in the postwar era intentionally designed this feature of the military in order to take Yugoslavs from all different ethnic, religious, social, and educational backgrounds and send them to serve somewhere far away from the region in which they were raised. This had the significant effect of intermingling the whole male population with people who might have been different, thus institutionally reinforcing the idea of Brotherhood and Unity in the country’s fighting force. It was in these bases where JNA soldiers forged bonds, memories, and deep friendships with their comrades in arms that would last a lifetime, especially forging strong ties with people of different ethnicities.

Photo of soldiers welcoming Tito
Welcoming Tito in Pirot, 29 September 1965
Source: Wikimedia Commons

Petrović utilizes the affective feeling of these soldiers to shatter the restrictive ethnic binary that has held the Ex-Yugoslav region in a chokehold since the 1990s. Through her gripping narrative that bridges Yugoslav times, the rupture of violence, and the eventual event-aftermath, the author colors significant nuance and elaboration into the picture of the (post)socialist and post-conflict society. Utopia of the Uniform demonstrates that the friendships and positive remembrance of former JNA soldiers’ time in military service take on what the author defines as an ‘affective afterlife,’ that is a phenomenon that lives on inspiring happiness, hope, or a fondness in the present despite unimaginable trauma. Additionally, Petrović significantly diversifies and debunks the dominating ethnic narratives that local politicians have hijacked to dictate that ethnic homogenization is the only viable path forward for the successor states.

Utopia of the Uniform demonstrates that the desires of good will and the strong friendship between soldiers of one background to their army buddies of another ethnic background refute the divisive propaganda that stubbornly lives on from the 1990s. The book articulates how the unique context of Yugoslav socialism and the philosophy of Workers’ Self-Management created an “infrastructure for feelings,” or a new social organization that “makes possible responsible decision-making under conditions of interdependency, mutual social responsibility, and solidarity, and that leads to the liberation of individuals.” (p. 189) Petrović argues that this system, despite its flaws, provided space for people to create their own dreams of utopia of the future. This utopia, found in the past within JNA bases across what used to be Yugoslavia, possesses an affective afterlife for the people who survived the 1990s and still offers them happiness, fond remembrance, and even a glimpse of hope for the future.

David Castillo is a doctoral student at the University of Texas at Austin, focusing on the former communist Yugoslavia and its successor states. His research explores the links between inter-communal violence, toxic masculinity, gender dynamics, propaganda, and mass manipulation. With academic foundations from the University of Texas at El Paso and Indiana University, David combines cultural history with international politics. Drawing from his experience in the region, he aims to compare post-Yugoslav masculinity shaped by the 1990s wars with Chicano/a/e ‘Machismo’ in Mexican-American borderlands, investigating how violence becomes integral to both identities.

The views and opinions expressed in this article or video are those of the individual author(s) or presenter(s) and do not necessarily reflect the policy or views of the editors at Not Even Past, the UT Department of History, the University of Texas at Austin, or the UT System Board of Regents. Not Even Past is an online public history magazine rather than a peer-reviewed academic journal. While we make efforts to ensure that factual information in articles was obtained from reliable sources, Not Even Past is not responsible for any errors or omissions.

The bold political style of Luciano Cruz: The Chilean student protests of 1967

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The following narrative is adapted from my recent dissertation on revolutions in Latin America. When I shared it with upper division history students for a class discussion, the story surprised them. Most of them had only ever experienced student government as something to put on your resumé for grad school applications. They had never imagined that student activism could be so decisive for crucial issues of public policy. The Chilean experience seemed to awaken their interest in a rich local legacy of passionate student activism and of unconditional commitment to causes that transcend personal gain. Here I share the story of the bold political style of Luciano Cruz.

As Chile’s first Christian Democratic government attempted to bring social justice through reform during the mid-1960s, medical students in the nation’s second city proposed a more radical change. In a political system designed to concede real power only to the already powerful, they argued, a mere change of government leadership would never suffice. Along with a few disaffected union organizers, the students at the University of Concepción, located in Chile’s second city, formed the Movement of the Revolutionary Left, (MIR), proposing a new constitutional order that, they hoped, would uplift Chile’s perennially poor and underprivileged.

The undisputed leader among the students was the fiery and brilliant Miguel Enríquez, who in 1961, had written on his medical school application essay, “everything has been given to me…, the time has come to give back.” Like Che Guevara before him, the call to heal the sick blended seamlessly with the call to make revolution for the poor. His classmate and best friend, Luciano Cruz, brought a uniquely impulsive energy and irresistible charm to that struggle. The political style of Luciano Cruz allowed him to knew how to rouse, entertain, and impassion any crowd at a moment’s notice.

Picture of Miguel Enríquez
Miguel Enríquez. Source: Resumen
Picture of Luciano Cruz
Luciano Cruz. Source: Resumen

Whereas Enríquez made measured, brilliant speeches—many of which have survived as written documents—his energetic deputy could improvise behind a microphone, holding the multitude spellbound for hours. Historian Marian Schlotterbeck points to Cruz’s debut as a student leader during a 1965 protest of the recent fare increase in public transportation. Chile’s largest labor federation, CUT, (Central Única de Trabajadores), had called for the protest, and they had invited Cruz as one who “embodied the contentious, combative style of the Concepción student movement.” Schlotterbeck points out that there was more at stake than just bus money. “Amidst wild applause,” she writes, “Cruz proclaimed that the demonstrations were no longer about fare hikes but ‘a demonstration by Chile’s poor against the rich.’”[1]

By 1967, Luciano Cruz had set his sights on the presidency of the student federation. The university had reached a crossroads. The Christian Democratic government of Eduardo Frei was promoting university reform on a national scale. Frei’s men had lifted up the University of Concepción as a model. They wanted to restructure higher learning as a driving force for modernization. But members of the newly configured MIR, known as Miristas, understood the plan as an attempt to co-opt and “Americanize” their university. Cruz would become MIR’s candidate to spearhead the resistance.

While technically private, the University of Concepción depended on funding from UNESCO and the Ford Foundation, making it vulnerable to foreign interference in crucial policy decisions.[2] With MIR’s support, the student federation (FEC) demanded the democratization of the power structure so that students and junior professors could have a voice in the decision-making process. But MIR had to win the presidency of the student federation to legitimize its proposal. Focusing his campaign on ideology, class interests, and the social role of the university, Miguel Enríquez had failed in his bid for that office two years earlier. This time, Miguel recognized his classmate’s dynamic advantage. Luciano’s landslide victory in Concepción marked MIR’s arrival as a national political force.

Schlotterbeck highlights a “new brand of audacious student activism” that would predominate in the student federation, transforming university students into political actors on a national scale.[3] Undergrads—and some even younger protestors—made headlines with strikes, street protests, and the occupation of campus buildings. Riot police confronted them with tear gas, truncheons, and water cannons. Jailed students went on hunger strikes, and their objectives began to escalate. Miguel Enríquez called for more than just a university reform. The time had come for a true university revolution. His statement to that effect appeared in the preeminent national magazine of the non-aligned intellectual left, Punto Final, with a photo of Luciano Cruz in a scuffle with five police officers that would become iconic.

Luciano Cruz in close contact with policemen.
Luciano Cruz defies Carabineros, Punto Final, 38, (septiembre 1967), 30
Trojan horse depiction, CIA inside the wooden structure. Drawing
CIA agents use the Peace Corps as their Trojan Horse. Punto Final, 47, (enero 1968), 47

Miguel directed MIR’s leadership to confront the “legal dictatorship” of the current system with relentless combat. They should denounce every detail, he said, so that the forces of repression were compelled not only to cease and desist, but to give ground.[4] On that note, MIR demanded the immediate expulsion of four Peace Corps volunteers from the University of Concepción. Perceived as the youth branch of the dubiously regarded Alliance for Progress, the Peace Corps presence symbolized the imperialist assumptions behind Frei’s model of reform.[5] Students argued that Peace Corps volunteers took up much needed space at the university residence. They also voiced their suspicions (likely credible) that Peace Corps volunteers had provided a stream of inside information to U.S. intelligence services.[6]

While Enríquez focused on the national politics of the reform, Cruz emerged as MIR’s chief tactician and spokesperson. Under his command, at one of their daily demonstrations, students in Concepción abducted a police officer. After holding him hostage in the university for several days, they offered his release in exchange for the same for all the students who had been arrested during recent protests.[7] The symbolic value of that gesture weighed heavily. With it, students reconfigured their recent detentions by Carabineros as similarly random and arbitrary abductions.

Carabineros fought back. They arrested Cruz, and the movement seemed to fall apart until Cruz dramatically escaped from jail and waltzed back into the meeting where student leaders discussed their next move.[8] Although the details of Cruz’ escape remain unclear, his stealth and proficiency in the martial arts seem to have played a part. His return to the front line provided a huge boost for morale, dramatically enhancing his personal mystique and his reputation for dauntless courage and invincibility. It also established MIR’s place in the leadership of the student federation at the Universidad de Concepción (FEC) for the foreseeable future.

Picture of student protest in Concepción
Student protest in Concepción. Source: https://www.diarioconcepcion.cl/politica/2019/05/22/reforma-en-la-udec-buscando-mas-participacion.html

But MIR’s ambitions did not stop with the student federation in Concepción. Members of the movement’s inner circle did not want Chileans to think of them as merely the radical fringe of the nation’s restless youth. Aligning themselves with the youthful and dynamic Cuban revolution, Miristas defied the perennial lethargy of Chile’s traditional left to project a hugely inflated image of the new movement’s political significance. Their claim had no real basis in the number of militants, access to material resources, or concrete influence in social organizations, but Mirista leadership bet on the oppressed masses’ perception of their growing visibility as a foreshadowing of an imminent and viable armed revolt. In his incisive analysis of the MIR phenomenon, literary scholar Hernán Vidal observes that MIR’s Comité Central manipulated the obvious contrast between an appearance of mythical power and a reality of tactical impotence, calling it a strategy of “establishing presence.”[9] They didn’t have to really be everywhere; they only had to seem to be everywhere. Luciano Cruz figured as the master of MIR’s expanding illusion of ubiquity.

Until 1969, MIR had mostly operated out in the open. Their practical jokes and disruptions only remained covert until they had succeeded. Then, they generated positive PR. But a pivotal student prank in Concepción would initiate a period of tension between the gregarious publicity that had shaped MIR’s style and method, and a new strategy of strict secrecy. As fate would have it, Luciano Cruz’ impulsive abduction of a local journalist in June of that year provoked the ire of the Frei government, driving the entire movement underground for the first time. Miristas had to learn to hide their militant activities and to use code names. The demands of clandestine living made MIR a more dangerous commitment for new recruits, but it also provided an undeniable aura of romance.

Kidnappings, though frequent, lucrative, and lethal among revolutionary movements in Brazil, Uruguay, and Argentina, did not figure in MIR’s habitual playbook. Leaders observed that, in terms of promoting public sympathy for the cause, they usually backfired. But acting independently, Luciano’s regional task force in Concepción crossed the line with a targeted prank in the austral winter of 1969. The Christian Democratic journalist, Hernán Osses Santa María, had lost his job at the University of Concepción because of the reform. He got his revenge by disparaging young Miristas in his editorials. He never criticized their politics. He derided their personal lives, and he made fun of their girlfriends. That seemed to violate an unspoken code of honor. The clever Luciano Cruz decided to teach him a lesson in respect.

Photograph of members of the Central Committee of the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR) during a press conference. From left to right are Roberto Moreno, Luciano Cruz, Nelson Gutiérrez, Miguel Enríquez, Bautista Van Schouwen and Andrés Pascal.
Fotografía Conferencia de prensa MIR. Source: Archivo Digital Londres 38

Luciano’s team of tricksters abducted Osses Santa María with the archaic idea of tarring and feathering him. Finding no tar, they released him naked in the courtyard of the university during an annual event. There was no real harm done, except to Christian Democratic pride. The Frei government took advantage of the public outcry to invoke a national security statute declaring MIR illegal, and to order the arrest of the Secretary General, along with his wily second in command.[10] That meant that most of MIR’s operatives had to go underground, something Miguel Enríquez had in mind anyway. Cruz had not cleared his plan with the more prudent Enríquez, but his audacity triggered MIR’s rather sudden transition from the gentler politics of campus protests and community organizing to a more decisive program of direct action; most of it, illicit; and some of it, armed. Cleverly-staged bank robberies, framed as Robin Hood style gestures of taking from the rich to benefit the poor, became the order of the day. Ever sensitive to the importance of good publicity, however, the students took precautions to make sure that no one ever got hurt.

After the election of Chile’s first Socialist President, Dr. Salvador Allende, in September of 1970, MIR continued to agitate for faster and more radical reform, but without the emphasis on spectacular disruptions of daily routines. Luciano Cruz took a flat in Santiago, where he conducted a covert program of surveillance, keeping watch over potential coup-plotting generals and their supporters. To this end, he recruited a sizeable contingent of young militants who learned to quietly follow and watch. In that role, Cruz’ team pieced together all the elements of the right-wing attempt to prevent Salvador Allende’s inauguration to the presidency, one that culminated in the assassination of General René Schneider, a trusted army commander.[11] Chilean police investigators, more attuned to internal bureaucracy and protocol than really solving crimes, had failed to break the case, but Cruz’ investigation uncovered embarrassing complicity that reached to the highest levels. Though published in Punto Final, the justice system failed to follow up on his findings.

Picture of funeral procession of Luciano Cruz
Funeral de Luciano Cruz. Source: Archivo Digital Londres 38

Luciano Cruz died of accidental gas inhalation in his one-room basement flat in downtown Santiago on August 14, 1971. After he missed an arranged meeting, Miguel Enríquez discovered his friend’s lifeless body. He frantically attempted to revive him, but it was too late. A CIA report surmised that Enríquez might have had Cruz murdered to resolve an internal power struggle.[12] But gas heaters in those days had no safety valves, and Luciano had been complaining of morning headaches for a week. All the witnesses mentioned the smell of gas in the flat. So it was likely careless rather than malicious.

Tens of thousands followed the funeral procession in support of the charismatic Luciano Cruz and the incisive student protest movement he represented.[13] MIR would never be the same without him. But, to this day, Chilean students put their whole heart and soul into their protests.

Nathan Stone, Professor of Instruction at the University of Texas and a recent Ph.D. recipient from the Department of History (2023) of the same institution. His specialization is Modern Latin American revolutionary movements. Previously, he lived and taught in Chile for thirty years, Uruguay for two, and IN Brazil for five. H is fluent in Spanish and Portuguese, and he has published his writing, both academic and non-fiction, in both languages.

The views and opinions expressed in this article or video are those of the individual author(s) or presenter(s) and do not necessarily reflect the policy or views of the editors at Not Even Past, the UT Department of History, the University of Texas at Austin, or the UT System Board of Regents. Not Even Past is an online public history magazine rather than a peer-reviewed academic journal. While we make efforts to ensure that factual information in articles was obtained from reliable sources, Not Even Past is not responsible for any errors or omissions.

Banner image source: http://archivodigital.londres38.cl/index.php/afiche-del-comite-de-solidaridad-luciano-cruz

[1] Marian E. Schlotterbeck, Beyond the Vanguard: Everyday Revolutionaries in Allende’s Chile (Oakland, University of California Press, 2018), 23.

[2] Schlotterbeck, Beyond the Vanguard, (2018), 26; Punto Final, 12, (septiembre 1966), 16-18.

[3] Schlotterbeck, Beyond the Vanguard, (2018), 26.

[4] Punto Final, 40, (oct 1967), 37.

[5] Punto Final, 12, (sept 1966), 18; Punto Final, 37, (sept 1967), 39, and Punto Final, 40, (oct 1967), 36.

[6] Odd Arne Westad, The Global Cold War: Third World Interventions and the Making of Our Times. (UK: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 35; and Punto Final, 32, (julio 1967), suplemento, 1-10.

[7] Schlotterbeck, Beyond the Vanguard, (2018), 26.

[8] “La rebelión de la juventud,” in Punto Final, 38, septiembre 1967, 28-30.

[9] Hernán Vidal, Presencia del MIR: 14 Claves Existenciales (Chile, Mosquito Comunicaciones, 1999), 28.

[10] Punto Final, 138, 31 agosto 1971, suplemento, 5.

[11] “El MIR denuncia a los verdaderos culpables del asesinato del General Schneider,” in Punto Final, 117, 10 noviembre 1970, suplemento, 1-10.

[12] CIA, Directorate of  Intelligence, 1141-1.37, Confidential, 1 October 1971, declassified September (1999),  https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/DOC_0000365918.pdf.   

[13] Jorge Müller Silva, “Funerales de Luciano Cruz Aguayo, 16 de agosto de 1971.” First released 1972; remastered by Chilefilms, Santiago, (2014).

This is Democracy – China’s Domestic and Foreign Policy

On this episode of This Is Democracy, Jeremi and Zachary are joined by Sheena Chestnut Greitens to discuss the changing political landscape in China and how that affects their relationship to the United States and other world leaders.

Zachary sets the scene with his poem entitled, “Far Away.”

Sheena Chestnut Greitens is an Associate Professor at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin, where she directs UT’s Asia Policy Program.  She is also a Nonresident Scholar with the Asia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Dr. Chestnut Greitens’ first book, Dictators and Their Secret Police (Cambridge, 2016), examines variations in internal security and repression in Taiwan, South Korea, and the Philippines during the Cold War.  Her second book, Politics of the North Korean Diaspora (Cambridge, 2023), focuses on authoritarianism, security, and diaspora politics. She is currently finishing her third book manuscript, which addresses how internal security concerns shape Chinese grand strategy. 

Alexei Navalny’s Legacy and Anti-Putin Resistance

Moscow’s southeast neighborhoods of Maryino and Lyublino always seem to be where the authorities locate controversial events. On March 1, 2024, it was Maryino who hosted the funeral of Russian dissident Alexei Navalny.  The church that held the ceremony is a post-Soviet building and dominates the center of a neighborhood otherwise filled with high-rise apartments, broad streets, shopping centers, and a string of parks and ponds along the Moscow River. On the day of the funeral, striking photos showed the lines of people paying their respects against the backdrops of apartment blocks. Other photos soon appeared online from inside the church despite authorities forbidding photography.  Having world historical events occur in a neighborhood you usually associate with medical visits, shopping, haircuts, and eating Uzbek food and sushi is surreal. With Navalny’s death, however, my wife and I also had a grim sense of both déjà vu and inevitability. 

When assassins shot journalist Anna Politkovskaya at her home in central Moscow in 2007, I was teaching English to cheery businesspeople a few blocks away.[1]  When assassins shot politician Boris Nemtsov on a bridge by the Kremlin in 2015, I was researching in the Moscow archives. My reaction was writing a post for Not Even Past about how Russian TV coverage immediately made light of Nemtsov’s “ladies’ man” reputation.[2]  Over the next month, I walked past the murder scene to view the mound of flowers on the sidewalk.  The pile was usually small because the city ordered the street cleaners to remove them daily.  When we awoke to Navalny’s death on February 16, we were saddened but not very surprised.

Alexey Navalny in court, February 2021.
Alexey Navalny in court, February 2021.
Source: Wikimedia Commons

Born to a Ukrainian father and a Russian mother, Navalny was involved with several political parties before gaining international attention for leading protests against fraud in the 2011 Russian parliamentary elections. His profile rose in 2013 as he became a candidate for the Moscow mayoral position.  Afterward, he organized protests and investigated corrupt politicians while facing increasing legal troubles and threats. Navalny believed that Putin had him poisoned in August 2020, leading him to nearly die. He sought medical care in Germany even as Russian authorities seized his assets and apartment.[3]  So why did Navalny return to Russia knowing he would face certain imprisonment and likely death? 

Political dissidents making a crucial choice about remaining in exile or returning home have a long history that weaves through the Russian Imperial and Soviet periods to the present.  Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky were in exile in Switzerland and Brooklyn, respectively, when the February Revolution overthrew Tsar Nicholas II in 1917. They only returned home (Lenin with German assistance) after the government had fallen.  During Joseph Stalin’s rule in the Soviet Union, Trotsky was forced into exile once again, this time to Mexico City, where he was assassinated in 1940.  Historian Barbara Martin has highlighted how Soviet dissidents such as Alexander Solzhenitsyn and Roy Medved faced this conundrum in the post-Stalinist Soviet Union. While life in exile was safer and provided academic and political freedoms, leaving felt like a dereliction of duty or abandoning your home. It also lessened dissidents’ authority among their fellow citizens.[4]  Navalny seemed to take this point to heart and hence accepted the risk of confrontation with the regime, likely believing that his brave anti-Putin legacy would be cemented even at great personal risk.

A political dissident in exile. Leon Trotsky (wearing a white suit) in Mexico, 1938.
A political dissident in exile. Leon Trotsky (wearing a white suit) in Mexico, 1938.
Source: Wikimedia Commons

Navalny’s return to Russia in January 2021 was stunningly brave, even as the end result was strikingly predictable. However, he is also a complex figure, and his actions, words, and legacy are intertwined in a set of wider issues and conflicts.

Consider for a moment the Russians in the apartments overlooking his funeral, not the mourners. Assessing Navalny’s popularity through Russian opinion polls, many of them problematic, is difficult.[5] But as I lived and visited Russia, even during Navalny’s poisoning, exile, return, and arrest saga, I heard many people expressing negative voices against him. Some recurring comments were skepticism about his anti-corruption campaigns or the simple belief that he was just another self-aggrandizing politician.  With the 2014 Maidan Revolution in Ukraine, the Russian occupation of Crimea, and the Russian intervention in Eastern Ukraine, cynicism turned to accusations of treason and other conspiracy theories, all repeated in various iterations in the Russian official media. 

Navalny protesting in Moscow, 2013.
Navalny protesting in Moscow, 2013.
Source: Wikimedia Commons

Part of this seems obvious. Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 solidified the state media’s portrayal of Navalny as a foreign agent. Furthermore, numerous new laws have designated Navalny, his organization, and most anti-Putin journalists and organizations as treasonous foreign terrorists acting on behalf of the West or Ukraine. The onslaught of such accusations wears people down.  And yet, sociologist Jeremy Morris argues that his contacts’ reaction to Navalny has little to do with propaganda. Many Russians simply dislike Navalny’s image and consider his campaigns naïve and inconsequential.[6] In other words, you can trust that conversations with Russians in Russia about his death are often very different than the coverage by non-Russian media. 

Aside from propaganda and everyday anti-Navalny sentiment, his politics and statements have also been a point of contention among other anti-Putin politicians and activists.  While Navalny is often portrayed as a stereotypical “Russian liberal,” earlier in his political career, he spoke the language of Russian ethno-nationalism. He amplified racial stereotypes directed towards Russia’s large immigrant and Muslim communities, as well as its other numerous non-Russian ethnic groups. He attended the far-right Russian marches, which blamed most of Russia’s ills on immigrants and called for mass deportations.  He moderated such stances over time and apologized. Still, his early remarks defined his image for many non-Russian ethnic groups within and outside of Russia.[7]  Even as his wife, Julia Navalnaya, took the reigns of his organization, the question of where non-ethnic Russians stand within their vision of Russia remains uncertain.[8]

The logo of "Russia of the Future," Alexey Navalny's party.
The logo of Alexey Navalny’s party – “Russia of the Future.” Source: Wikimedia Commons

In the context of the Russian occupation of Crimea in 2014, Ukrainians and Crimean Tatars (the indigenous Muslim minority of Crimea) had good reasons to be skeptical of his denunciations of the full-scale Russian invasion in February 2022.  Beginning with the 2014 occupation of Crimea, Navalny had denounced Russian methods but echoed the Russian nationalist ethos that Russia and Crimea possessed a kind of supernatural bond.[9]  As someone who was researching Stalin’s ethnic cleansing of Crimea at the time the occupation began, this was disappointing, to say the least.   He made such statements as Russian authorities began a new wave of repressions, arrests, and sometimes murders of Crimean Tatars, Crimean Ukrainians, and Russians who protested Putin.[10] 

One point that many of Navalny’s varied detractors may agree on (albeit for different reasons) is that the Western media is too focused on Navalny himself and less on the audiences he represents.  At the very least, the acknowledgment of Navalny should come with a recognition of the bravery and defiance of individuals and victims outside the media spotlight.  There are thousands of other political prisoners in Russia and occupied Ukraine, and Putin’s army and occupation kill Ukrainians every day.  These prisoners suffer from malnourishment, torture, and death.  In Ukraine, the use of torture, rape, and mass executions is now well documented.[11]  In Russia, dissident Vladimir Kara-Murza is now serving a 25-year sentence for condemning the war and has become chronically ill.[12]  Last year, Crimean Tatar activist Dzhemil Gafarov died in a southern Russian prison after being tortured and denied medical release.[13]  The list of absurd arrests for anti-war activities is far too long to recount here. One of the latest examples is the 7-year prison sentence for Russian poet Alexander Byvshev, who questioned the morality of Russia’s invasion.[14]  In other words, the legacy of sacrifice and resistance to Putin is multi-national and multi-ethnic in scope and is far more diverse and broad than just Navalny, the individual.

Vladimir Kara-Murza is now serving a 25-year sentence for condemning Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Vladimir Kara-Murza is now serving a 25-year sentence for condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Source: Wikimedia Commons.

In the month since his death, Russia-related news has remained grim.  Russian attacks have killed dozens of Ukrainian civilians and left the country’s second-largest city, Kharkiv, without power.  Putin has “won” his latest election with absurd margins. He used the election celebrations to signal “enthusiastic voting” in Russian-occupied Ukraine and, almost with a sense of accomplishment, finally mentioned the now-deceased Navalny by name. However, the events of last week showed that Putin does not control everything in Russia. ISIS-K militants launched a horrific terrorist attack on a Moscow concert venue, killing well over 100 people.  Putin’s reaction has been a confused mix of attempting to blame Ukraine and the West, while Russian society and the state have descended into targeting Muslim immigrants and ethnic minorities with threats, deportations, and violence.

Both Russia’s present and its future seem grim. That is perhaps when it is best to think of Alexei Navalny. If nothing else, a consensus seems to have developed that Navalny was remarkable for being a Russian optimist and having the audacity, no matter how flawed or naïve, to believe that Russia’s current course could be reversed. Realistic or not, I do think about that possibility every day and whether – just maybe – there might be some truth to his belief.

Andrew Straw is a historian of Soviet Crimea. He has taught courses on Russian and Soviet history at the University of Texas and Huston-Tillotson University. At the moment, he teaches high school world history and is an instructor for the University of Texas OnRamps history program. He continues research as an independent scholar and is preparing a book proposal that will focus on Stalin’s Crimea policy and Crimean Tatars in the immediate postwar period. He can be reached at astraw@utexas.edu or on Twitter at @astrawism1

[1] https://www.iwmf.org/community/anna-politkovskaya/

[2] https://notevenpast.org/tag/boris-nemtsov/

[3] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-54369664.amp

[4] https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/dissident-histories-in-the-soviet-union-9781350192447/

[5] https://www.levada.ru/2021/02/05/vozvrashhenie-alekseya-navalnogo/

[6] https://postsocialism.org/2024/02/16/russia-lost-its-greatest-and-most-naive-optimist-a-curmudgeons-obituary-of-alexei-navalny/

[7] https://www.euronews.com/2023/07/07/racist-or-revolutionary-is-alexei-navalny-who-many-westerners-think-he-is

[8] https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2024/02/29/navalnys-difficult-relationship-with-indigenous-russians-a84291

[9] https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2023/03/07/navalnys-policy-shift-on-crimea-may-be-too-little-too-late-a80396

[10] https://unn.ua/en/news/at-least-60-people-died-from-repressions-in-crimea-during-russian-occupation-ctrc

[11]https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/mar/25/russia-weaponising-sexual-violence-ukraine-values

[12] https://www.npr.org/2023/04/17/1168667764/vladimir-kara-murza-prison-sentence

[13] https://khpg.org/en/1608812709

[14] https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russian-anti-war-poet-gets-seven-year-jail-term-over-poem-ukraine-war-2024-03-22/

The views and opinions expressed in this article or video are those of the individual author(s) or presenter(s) and do not necessarily reflect the policy or views of the editors at Not Even Past, the UT Department of History, the University of Texas at Austin, or the UT System Board of Regents. Not Even Past is an online public history magazine rather than a peer-reviewed academic journal. While we make efforts to ensure that factual information in articles was obtained from reliable sources, Not Even Past is not responsible for any errors or omissions.

Notes from the Field: Reflections on Dictatorship and Democracy in Argentina

In January 2023, I traveled nearly three hundred miles from my apartment in Buenos Aires to meet a stranger in Paraná, Argentina. We had chatted sporadically via WhatsApp, but I had agreed to spend a long weekend in her home months before we ever met. As I stepped off the bus, I had little sense of what awaited me, yet I was excited to finally meet Luz.

Our meeting happened by chance. A few months earlier, I started research in the Archivo General for my dissertation on President Raúl Alfonsín. He had led Argentina’s 1983 democratic transition, following the country’s longest and most brutal dictatorship. Between 1976 and 1983, the military junta forcibly disappeared an estimated 30,000 people. I had mentioned this project to Álvaro, another doctoral student working in the archives. That weekend he texted me from his friend’s home. “You’ll never believe this,” he said, “but my friend’s parents were friends of Alfonsín.” Accompanying his text was a photo of Luz, walking alongside the president. Álvaro said that he had told Luz about my project, and she had invited me to visit.

Raúl Alfonsín and Enrique Pereira at a book talk in the Biblioteca Popular in Paraná (courtesy of Luz Buscema)

Luz’s invitation was unexpected and unusual but also very exciting. I quickly followed up by WhatsApp. She promised to share books and photos from her late husband Enrique’s personal archives. Enrique had held local political office for Alfonsín’s party, la Unión Cívica Radical (the Radical Civic Union, UCR). He had also spent thirty years writing a history of the UCR and its important figures. After Enrique’s death, Luz had undertaken the process of editing and publishing his life’s work. Now she offered to share these materials and her memories of Alfonsín’s presidency with a curious historian from the United States.

Luz alongside President Alfonsín (courtesy of Luz Buscema)

Arriving in Paraná in January, I immediately felt overwhelmed. The bus ride from Buenos Aires lasted a little over eight hours, and Luz greeted my tired face with a flurry of questions. I worried that my Spanish would sound rough or that she would regret inviting me. On the way to her home, I tried to organize my thoughts. I had never collected interviews in such an intimate way, and I was anxious not to overstep or offend my host. Luz, on the other hand, seemed eager to begin sharing her stories.

I spent the first full day in Paraná sorting through Enrique’s papers and photos. As I read his work, I gained a better sense of his life and career. Luz helped fill in the gaps—the tiny details that remained outside of her husband’s papers. She remembered difficult years under the military dictatorship. Prior to 1976, Luz and Enrique had participated in local politics and labor unions. The military regime would criminalize these activities, and those who participated risked arrest, torture, or disappearance. Despite the high levels of repression, Luz and Enrique continued to engage in their old social circles and to organize secret political meetings.

This framed photo of President Raúl Alfonsín greets all visitors to Luz’s home (author’s photo)

A palpable sense of fear permeated Luz’s memories. She spoke of how the couple navigated the constant threat of repression. “We thought one of us should stay . . . stay alive to take care of the children,” Luz said. Often this meant that she stayed home while her husband attended meetings. Other times the couple ignored their fears and opened their own home as a space for political gatherings. They hosted a talk by future president Raúl Alfonsín at their home in 1981—two years before the dictatorship’s end. Luz explained how they had carefully instructed guests to arrive at varying times and in small groups to avoid suspicion. “The only one who wasn’t afraid was Alfonsín,” recalled Luz.

Raúl Alfonsín in the backyard of Luz and Enrique in December 1981 (courtesy of Luz Buscema)

Later, I asked Luz why she agreed to host meetings in her home despite her fears. “I always liked open doors,” she replied. Perhaps that also explained why she willingly invited a stranger to spend the weekend in her home. This openness struck me as remarkable, and our conversations enriched my project. Luz’s recollections might not become the focus of my dissertation, but her stories echo throughout its pages. Often overshadowed in the official narratives, experiences like those of Luz and Enrique are a powerful reminder of the everyday courage and resilience that quietly shaped Argentina’s path toward democracy.

Gabrielle Esparza is a Ph.D. candidate in Latin American history, with a focus on twentieth-century Argentina. Her dissertation revisits President Raúl Alfonsín’s democratic project to examine the intersection of welfare policy and democratization in post-dictatorship Argentina. She holds a B.A. in History and Spanish from Illinois College and received a Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship to Argentina in 2017. There she taught at the Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Gabrielle graduated with her M.A. in History from the University of Texas at Austin in 2020. Her master’s thesis The Politics of Human Rights Prosecutions: Civil Military Relations during the Alfonsín Presidency, 1983-1989 examines the evolution of President Raúl Alfonsín’s human rights policies from his candidacy to his presidency, which followed Argentina’s most repressive dictatorship.

The views and opinions expressed in this article or video are those of the individual author(s) or presenter(s) and do not necessarily reflect the policy or views of the editors at Not Even Past, the UT Department of History, the University of Texas at Austin, or the UT System Board of Regents. Not Even Past is an online public history magazine rather than a peer-reviewed academic journal. While we make efforts to ensure that factual information in articles was obtained from reliable sources, Not Even Past is not responsible for any errors or omissions.

The Wars of Oppenheimer

Banner image for The Wars of Oppenheimer by David Conrad

It’s a three-hour, ultra-big-screen, deeply-researched box office mega-hit about… J. Robert Oppenheimer, project manager. Leslie Groves, the manager’s manager. Kitty Oppenheimer, the manager’s kids’ manager. Lewis Strauss, the wanna-be manager. Harry Truman, the buck-stops-here manager. James Byrnes, President Truman’s manager. The scientists of the Manhattan Project were thoroughly unmanageable. The bomb? It was everybody’s fault, and nobody’s in particular. Nuclear war by committee. It’s Oppenheimer: Destroyer of Responsibility.

Director and screenwriter Christopher Nolan isn’t wrong. The essence of the Manhattan Project, several characters remind us, was compartmentalization. The less any one project member knew about how to make an atom bomb, the less he or she could reveal to an enemy — especially a Soviet, an enemy of the Allied variety.

One of the movie’s smartest choices is to place the story of mankind’s first nuclear weapon in its ideological context. It excels at depicting the intellectual context, the scientific rivalries, and the egos surrounding the bomb. It deals tolerably well with the political context, the way World War II‘s messy wrap-up determined how the bomb was used. But where Oppenheimer sets itself apart from most other movies on the topic is in its depiction of the bomb as a turning point in the debate over communism: a debate that had raged for years and would only intensify as the nuclear era began.

"Little Boy," the nuclear bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945.

“Little Boy,” the nuclear bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. The bomb killed tens of thousands of Japanese civilians.
Source: Wikimedia Commons.

Around a third of the movie takes place many years after the bomb, when Oppenheimer’s (Cillian Murphy) security clearance is under review and his occasional colleague Lewis Strauss (Robert Downey, Jr.) is seeking Senate confirmation to join President Eisenhower’s cabinet. If this sounds obscure and more “inside baseball” than a gripping thriller, it is, and Nolan leans into its wonkiness with the confidence of a director who answers to no one. Unlike the rest of the movie, these flash-forward scenes are shot in black and white, a palette that cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema uses beautifully. Nolan, who is known for trippy time-bending films like Interstellar and Tenet, collapses about a decade’s worth of bureaucratic infighting into an interwoven, frenetic, emotional, and at times corny parallel movie that he grafts onto his more conventional biopic.

It is in this seemingly tacked-on portion of the film that the theme of communism vs. anti-communism stakes out its central position. The postwar rift between “the free world” of liberal capitalism and the opposing world of the communist bloc was dangerous because, after the bombs reached a certain strength, either side could have started the war to end all wars as well as terminating all known life. However, because that hasn’t yet happened (as of the publication of this article), Nolan has to illustrate the tension indirectly. While a McCarthy-era committee grills Oppenheimer and his wife Kitty (Emily Blunt) about their prewar communist sympathies, the bitter and conniving Strauss faces a divided U.S. Senate and a rebellion of atomic scientists.

The end result is two clear camps, Strauss’ and Oppenheimer’s. And in their pride and addiction to power, both ramp up pressure until the other is destroyed. Excessive makeup and monologuing from Strauss and unearned heroics from the Oppenheimers notwithstanding, this petty skirmish after the war is key to the movie’s message.

Oppenheimer reminds us that, if we seek the origins of the Second World War in the First, the people who lived it had a more recent and more relevant frame of reference: the Spanish Civil War (1936-39). This was the first major trial by combat between fascism on the one hand and communism and republican democracy on the other. It was the romantic struggle that drew in Langston Hughes, Ernest Hemingway, and Casablanca‘s Rick Blaine. It was the proving ground for foreign, notably American, idealists who risked their lives or at least sent money to ensure that freedom –  in the left-wing sense of progressive thinking and non-traditional living – would not go quietly into the night as Europe’s balance of power tilted sharply to the right.

Lewis Strauss
Lewis Strauss during his tenure as the chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC).
Source: Library of Congress

Oppenheimer and his family and friends sent money through the robust international organization of the Communist Party. Nolan shows Oppenheimer as politically naive but stubbornly loyal to his communist girlfriend Jean (Florence Pugh) and fellow-traveling best friend Chevalier (Jefferson Hall). He also shows Oppenheimer’s support for unionizing and integrating academia, two supposed vectors for communist infiltration.

Nolan details how Oppenheimer’s politics made him a difficult pick to keep the U.S. military’s highest secret. Matt Damon’s character, General Leslie Groves, is a show-stealer as a buttoned-up, blunt-talking Pentagon man — the Pentagon man, since he was the one who built it — who forms a surprisingly close relationship with the Bhagavad Gita-quoting egghead he chooses for the job. Casey Affleck appears in one indelible scene as a hardened anti-communist who sees through Oppenheimer’s prevarications about his past. Nolan also shows how Oppenheimer and the scientists he recruited, a team that included a number of left-leaning academics and Jewish scientists, reacted to the realization that the atomic bombs would fall not on the Germans whose bomb program they’d been racing, but on a largely defeated Japan. Though the movie chooses not to show Japan at all, a scene in which Oppenheimer visualizes his Los Alamos team with Hiroshima- and Nagasaki-style burns is one of the film’s most powerful moments.

Oppenheimer dodges a real discussion of the surrender of Japan, about which whole movies have been devoted (see, for example, Japan’s Longest Day by Kihachi Okamoto). It mentions the Potsdam Conference, where Truman (Gary Oldman, in another instance of too much makeup) received Groves’s news about the successful Trinity Test, but viewers must read on their own about the conference’s significance for Japan’s surrender planning. He shows Byrnes (Pat Skipper), Truman’s Secretary of State and “Assistant President,” but conveys nothing about how the bomb changed Byrnes’ and, therefore, Truman’s thinking about the Soviet role vis a vis Japan. Relevant but outside the film’s scope are discussions about nuclear science in postwar Japan and the long shadow Hiroshima and Nagasaki cast over Japanese politics and art. These are directions the movie could have gone, but for Nolan the atomic bomb is not about Japan.

By the same token, the people who made the bomb are not defined by it. Oppenheimer emerges from the movie as an intellectual on par with the likes of Albert Einstein (Tom Conti) and Niels Bohr (Kenneth Branagh). He butts heads, always with the greatest professional respect, with Enrico Fermi, Edward Teller, Ernest Lawrence, and Werner Heisenberg, all brilliantly cast and sharply written. They all feel as though they could star in their own movies with the bomb as a mere footnote. The birth of nuclear weapons, it seems, was an almost accidental consequence of their combined genius. Their governments weaponized them, Nolan’s film tells us, and most of them had the good grace to feel uneasy about it.

Albert Einstein and Robert Oppenheimer.
Albert Einstein and Robert Oppenheimer. Source: Wikimedia Commons

Nolan’s is not a reductive kind of hero worship; these (almost) household-name scientists do, amazingly, feel like real people, and none are more flawed than Oppenheimer himself. The research that Nolan did to get these men right is obvious, and his Oppenheimer, like the real one, says that he feels blood on his hands and anxiety about the planet’s future. Yet equally obvious is the fact that Nolan sees the bomb-builders as visionaries, and if they felt they had no choice but to beat Hitler to the bomb, if they declined to take responsibility for what happened in Japan, then Nolan will go no further down those roads than they. What happened happened, now on to the Cold War.

Oppenheimer is Nolan’s second visit to World War II after 2017’s Dunkirk, and hopefully, it will not be his last. His understanding of the era — its mindsets, its cadences — is remarkable, and his handling of very big and very different personalities within the era is impressive. The film is his best-looking to date. There are beats that don’t work and paths not taken that deserved a closer look, but complex themes come through clearly and speak well of Nolan’s skills as a historian. Oppenheimer‘s success with audiences is a good thing well deserved.

But don’t miss Barbie, either.

David A. Conrad received his Ph.D. from UT Austin in 2016 and published his first book, Akira Kurosawa and Modern Japan, in 2022. He is currently working on a second book, which will also focus on postwar Japan. David lived in Japan’s Miyagi prefecture for three years and can’t wait to go back to his home away from home.

The views and opinions expressed in this article or video are those of the individual author(s) or presenter(s) and do not necessarily reflect the policy or views of the editors at Not Even Past, the UT Department of History, the University of Texas at Austin, or the UT System Board of Regents. Not Even Past is an online public history magazine rather than a peer-reviewed academic journal. While we make efforts to ensure that factual information in articles was obtained from reliable sources, Not Even Past is not responsible for any errors or omissions.

Roundtable Review of The Peacemaker: Ronald Reagan, the Cold War, and the World on the Brink

Banner image for Roundtable Review of The Peacemaker: Ronald Reagan, the Cold War, and the World on the Brink

From the editors:

William Inboden is the William J. Power, Jr. executive director of the Clements Center for National Security at the University of Texas at Austin. A former State Department official who served on the National Security Council under President George W. Bush, Inboden is also a distinguished scholar of international history. His most recent book, entitled The Peacemaker: Ronald Reagan, the Cold War, and the World on the Brink, presents a definitive account of the Reagan administration’s foreign policy achievements.

Book cover for The Peacemaker: Ronald Reagan, the Cold War, and the World on the Brink

To mark The Peacemaker‘s publication, Not Even Past invited historians Joseph A. Ledford and Ashlyn Hand to review its contents. Ledford and Hand are rising stars in the world of historical scholarship. Their reviews deftly describe Inboden’s key insights, showing how Reagan strove to bring peace and order to the deeply unsettled world of the 1980s. Few presidents have grappled with greater international uncertainty. But as Inboden’s book demonstrates, Reagan was able to build a lasting legacy through his skillful navigation of the late Cold War’s uncharted waters.

Banner image for The Peacemaker: Ronald Reagan, the Cold War, and the World on the Brink

Speaking to a private scholarly gathering at the Library of Congress in 1986, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger remarked that, “When you meet the President, you ask yourself, ‘How did it ever occur to anybody that he should be Governor, much less President?’” Still, Kissinger confessed of President Ronald Reagan: “He has a kind of instinct that I cannot explain.” In The Peacemaker, William Inboden not only provides clarity on Reagan’s instinct, but also furnishes the preeminent account of his statecraft, from the origins of Reagan’s 1980 presidential campaign to his December 4th, 1992, address to the Oxford Union, replete with insightful anecdotes and perceptive analysis.

A cavalcade of declassification over the past decade has helped Inboden offer greater insight into Reagan’s policymaking. To explain Reagan’s statecraft, Inboden identifies in Reagan’s foreign policy seven themes that derive from both the archives and his worldview: allies and partners; history; force and diplomacy; religious faith and religious freedom; tragedy; battle of ideas; and expansion of liberty. These seven themes reflect a hawkish but nuclear abolitionist Reagan deeply engaged in crafting and executing his foreign policy—a president determined to harness American power and allied support to challenge the Soviet Union and secure peace. The dynamic nature of liberal democracy and market capitalism, Reagan fervently believed, advantaged the United States and sustained his diplomatic and military campaign against the Soviets. Reagan sought not only diplomacy underpinned by a mighty American military buildup but also the spread of political and religious freedoms to uplift the oppressed and undermine authoritarians.

President Ronald Reagan and former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, 1981.
President Ronald Reagan swaps pleasantries with former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger at the White House in June 1981. Source: National Archives.

Inboden’s seven themes weave through an engrossing narrative, which also serves an important methodological purpose. Foreign policy decisions are neither made in an isolated context nor arrived at with absolute certainty. Drawing on his policymaking experience and historical craft, Inboden successfully captures in narrative form the precariousness of policymaking as the Reagan administration lived it. In doing so, Inboden eloquently reconstructs the messy reality of the international affairs in which Reagan dealt.

At once judicious and bold, The Peacemaker presents three interrelated arguments about Reagan’s bid to master 1980s geopolitics. First, alongside Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Reagan had the most significant modern presidency. In January 1981, Reagan confronted the Soviet Union at the zenith of its military power during the Cold War—a fearsome Soviet Union that had invaded Afghanistan, aided revolution across the globe, and tightened its grip behind the Iron Curtain. An onslaught of other geopolitical threats faced the president, too. In Africa, apartheid persisted, and the last vestiges of colonialism precipitated civil war. Latin America was awash in blood from the Cold War’s destructive forces. The Iranian Revolution destabilized the Middle East, and the rise of terrorism confounded policymakers. These grave issues posed vexing challenges, in addition to the problems besetting Western Europe and Asia. Inside America, Reagan grappled with a crisis of confidence and institutions, a consequence of 1970s domestic tumult and economic downturn.

As Inboden shows, however, the Reagan Revolution cast the foundations of a new world order out of the deadly frost of the Cold War. By January 1989, the United States appeared rejuvenated economically, politically, and militarily. A wave of democracy flowed from Argentina, Chile, and El Salvador to South Korea, the Philippines, and Taiwan. The “evil empire” slouched toward the ash heap of history. Reagan achieved arms reduction with the Soviet Union and, in turn, lessened the chances of nuclear annihilation. “The Iron Curtin and Berlin Wall may have appeared to the naked eye to still be standing,” Inboden observes, “but the forces that would bring them down were already boring away within” (476). The Cold War ended in short order. With the added benefit of structural forces moving to its advantage, the United States reached unipolarity under the leadership of Reagan’s successor and vice president, George H. W. Bush.

Reagan delivers his famous Berlin Wall speech in front of the Brandenburg Gate on June 12th, 1987.
“Tear Down This Wall!”: Reagan delivers his famous Berlin Wall speech in front of the Brandenburg Gate on June 12th, 1987.

Second, and stemming from the first argument, Reagan’s grand strategy for waging the Cold War brought the Soviet Union to a “negotiated surrender,” one in which Reagan pursued diplomacy to curb hostilities and reduce the nuclear threat while marshalling all the resources of the United States to extirpate Soviet communism from the earth. Paul Nitze’s walk in the Geneva woods initiated a sprint toward arms reductions, culminating in Reagan signing the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. During this arms race to zero, as Inboden details, Reagan embarked on the Strategic Defense Initiative, a missile defense system that scientist Edward Teller encouraged, and a cross-section of experts ridiculed, but the Soviets feared. Reagan upgraded the US armed forces, building unrivaled weaponry using new technologies. He unified the Western alliance against the Soviet Union, Warsaw Pact satellites, and other Soviet-supported authoritarians. And, crucially, he brought the Reagan Doctrine to bear on Soviet advancement in the Global South while inspiring dissidents under the yoke of communism with stirring rhetoric and covert assistance.

Third, and responsible for the second argument, Reagan effected a Cold War grand strategy through economic restoration, defense modernization, political and religious liberty promotion, nuclear weapons abolition, anti-communist insurgency financing, and the obsolescence of mutually assured destruction, a set of actions codified by National Security Decision Directives 12, 13, 32, 54, 71, 75, 166, 238, and 302. Here, Inboden daringly—and ultimately persuasively—argues that these prongs of Reagan’s strategy combined to stress the Soviet system and create the conditions that influenced the ascendence of Mikhail Gorbachev, a reformer who embraced Reagan’s diplomatic overtures to mitigate the deleterious effects of American power.

Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev, October 1986.
Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev pose for a photograph during their Reykjavik summit in October 1986. Source: National Archives.

From this vantage, Reagan’s record may seem unblemished. Yet, despite rendering an overall positive judgement, Inboden does not pull punches on Reagan’s mistakes. In the Global South, Reagan’s policies could be counterproductive and tragic. In Lebanon, for instance, Inboden sharply criticizes Reagan’s handling of the Marine barracks bombing, particularly the president’s decision to not retaliate. “His failure to do so,” Inboden judges, “damaged American credibility, hurt relations with an important ally [France], and invited further terrorist attacks” (256). In Nicaragua, Reagan’s harbor mining operation proved a self-inflicted political disaster. “The mines,” Inboden contends, “did far more damage to America’s global reputation than to the Sandinista economy” (286). So, too, did Reagan’s support for disreputable anticommunist leaders and insurgents compromise his administration’s moral standing.

Inside the White House, meanwhile, Reagan often expressed indifference to perennial squabbling among staff and avoided personal confrontations. His inattention to the minutiae of being president manifested infamously in the Iran-Contra affair, a harebrained scheme involving arms-for-hostages deals with Iran and the diversion of the profits to the Contras in violation of the Boland amendments. Reagan arguably made his greatest blunder with Iran-Contra. As Inboden puts it: Iran-Contra “violated several of his own strategic principles, such as: Negotiate from strength. Keep faith with allies. Incentivize adversaries to engage in good behavior; do not reward bad behavior. Build public support for policies rather than keeping them secret. Even ‘trust but verify’” (423).

By contrasting Iran-Contra with the Geneva Summit, however, Inboden encapsulates the enigmatic Reagan in a single passage. During Iran-Contra, Inboden notes, Reagan exhibited his legendary stubbornness, disregarded sage advice from trusted cabinet members, and deluded himself into thinking that arms for hostages was not his cardinal objective. The scandal could have been easily avoided if Reagan had not followed his worst instincts. At Geneva, conversely, Reagan confidently pursued his creative strategy for ending the Cold War across ten sessions with Gorbachev, laying the groundwork for the conflict’s resolution. He formed a true relationship with Gorbachev while pressuring him on arms reductions and human rights. Reagan was in his element. His courage and convictions both impressed and distressed the Soviet leader.

Reagan greets Gorbachev at the first session of the Geneva summit in November 1985.
Reagan greets Gorbachev at the first session of the Geneva summit in November 1985. Source: National Archives.

Although Reagan could not quote Thomas Schelling’s chapter and verse, he abhorred nuclear weapons, committed to a singular vision of world order, and possessed an uncanny ability to cut to the heart of policy matters. In a revealing anecdote, Inboden recounts Reagan’s visit to the North American Air Defense Command in 1979, during which General James Hill informed him that America did not maintain a defense against nuclear weapons, only the facility to counterattack. Reagan concluded that relying on mutually assured destruction was no way to live. This grim realization reinforced Reagan’s belief in nuclear abolition and his resolve to peacefully end the Cold War. As Inboden lucidly demonstrates, Reagan articulated the genesis of his plan in the 1970s, established the means during his first term, and delivered on the ends in his second term.

Inboden’s vivid portrayal of Reagan refutes the reversal thesis that he somehow transformed during his second term. The Cold War changed, not Reagan. The 40th president called for the zero option in 1981 and made good on his promise in 1987 by seeking “peace through strength.” (65) Only one version of Reagan served as president, and he comes alive in The Peacemaker.

Joseph A. Ledford is an America in the World Consortium Postdoctoral Fellow at the Henry A. Kissinger Center for Global Affairs at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.

Banner for Winning the Battle of Ideas by Ashlyn Hand

In The Peacemaker: Ronald Reagan, the Cold War, & the World on the Brink, William Inboden offers the first comprehensive analysis of Ronald Reagan’s foreign policy. It is a brilliantly written narrative of complicated characters and strategic vision during the final decade of the Cold War. The Cold War was not a foregone conclusion, and Inboden’s book evokes the peril and urgency of the time. The sobering reality of a potential hot war—one with the capability of obliterating humankind–sits in the narrative like a member of Reagan’s inner circle and demands intellectual empathy from the reader.

Inboden argues that Reagan understood the Cold War fundamentally as a battle of ideas made more complex because of great power competition. This contrasted with the more common understanding of the Cold War as a classic great power competition with an ideological element. This difference in framing meant that Reagan saw Soviet communism as an enemy to be defeated rather than party to a conflict to be managed or contained.

Reagan announcing his administration's Strategic Defense Initiative, March 1983
Reagan announcing his administration’s Strategic Defense Initiative–nicknamed “Star Wars”–in March 1983. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

But how to defeat communism without launching World War III? Inboden describes Reagan’s goal as “negotiated surrender,” in which Reagan applied sufficient pressure and exploited Soviet vulnerabilities to puncture the Soviet system while extending a hand in diplomatic outreach. Inboden recognizes that these goals were, at times, in contradiction. Still, he maintains that Reagan himself “held tenaciously to both” (4).

One central theme in The Peacemaker is Reagan’s commitment to religious freedom and the expansion of liberty. Vis-à-vis the Soviet Union, Reagan pushed for the protection of Jewish refuseniks and persecuted religious believers like the Siberian Seven, a group of Pentecostals who sought refuge in the American Embassy in Moscow in 1978. But as Inboden addresses, Reagan’s Cold War lens could prevent him from acknowledging the brutality of regimes in places like El Salvador and Argentina (106).

A statue symbolizing religious freedom situated in the exterior plaza of the Ronald Reagan International Trade Center in Washington, D. C.
A statue symbolizing religious freedom situated in the exterior plaza of the Ronald Reagan International Trade Center in Washington, D. C. The statue forms part of the Oscar Straus Memorial Fountain. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

Inboden also highlights the role of historical memory in shaping foreign policy decision-making. Whether it be Bill Casey’s likening Soviet communism to Nazism or the ever-present fear of another Vietnam, the centrality of history is a recurring theme.

The book unfolds chronologically, giving the reader a taste of the sheer volume of strategic challenges facing the Oval Office–a reality Secretary of State George Shultz called the “simultaneity of events” (7).  The number of issues vying for presidential attention at any one moment is overwhelming, a situation sometimes made more stressful by the eclectic cast of characters in Reagan’s cabinet. Relying on newly released documents and meticulous archival research, Inboden captures the idiosyncrasies, missteps, and glories of the Reagan team.

In the end, the Cold War outlasted Reagan’s time in office. Still, Inboden maintains, “Reagan had transformed the art of the possible. Things inconceivable in 1980 became reality by 1989” (475). The Peacemaker is key reading material to better understand foreign policy challenges of the Cold War and the strategic vision of the 40th president.

The views and opinions expressed in this article or video are those of the individual author(s) or presenter(s) and do not necessarily reflect the policy or views of the editors at Not Even Past, the UT Department of History, the University of Texas at Austin, or the UT System Board of Regents. Not Even Past is an online public history magazine rather than a peer-reviewed academic journal. While we make efforts to ensure that factual information in articles was obtained from reliable sources, Not Even Past is not responsible for any errors or omissions.

Prisoners of the Cold War

banner image for Prisoners of the Cold War

I grew up watching reruns of The Prisoner, a classic sixties television series created and produced by the famously eccentric TV icon Patrick McGoohan. McGoohan also stars in the series, playing a disillusioned British spy struggling to escape his allotted role in the Cold War. A striking opening montage sets the plot in motion. McGoohan’s spy is shown storming into his boss’ office, where, after a ferocious argument, he resigns from his job. Immediately thereafter, he jumps into his sleek Lotus sportscar (this is, after all, the age of Bond) and heads for home. But danger is hot on his heels: two unidentified thugs, disguised as undertakers and driving a hearse, surreptitiously pursue the Lotus across central London. The hearse arrives at the spy’s townhouse; the thugs emerge and flood the house with gas; the spy, in the parlor, is knocked unconscious. Sometime later, he reawakens in what initially looks like the same room. But a glance out the window reveals otherwise. The spy has been kidnapped, and his captors have transported him . . . not to a cell block, but to a picturesque seaside resort town.

A contemporary photograph of Portmeiron, Wales, the seaside resort town used to portray the fictitious "Village" in The Prisoner
A contemporary photograph of Portmeiron, Wales, the seaside resort town used to portray the fictitious “Village” in The Prisoner. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

At first glance, “The Village,” whose outwardly cheerful inhabitants go by numbers instead of names, appears to be a harmonious, democratic utopia. But McGoohan’s character, rechristened “Number Six” upon arrival, quickly discovers that his new home is actually a prison for spies. Real power is concentrated in the hands of Number Two, a sinister Village grandee who torments, brainwashes, and interrogates residents on behalf of a mysterious, unseen Number One. To this treatment, Number Six refuses to submit. “I am not a Number!” he declares at the beginning of every Prisoner episode. “I am a free man!” The statement becomes a sort of motto for the show, which revolves around Number Six’s attempts escape from the Village and expose Number One.

A bust of Patrick McGoohan on display in Portmeiron
A bust of Patrick McGoohan on display in Portmeiron. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

Over the course of sixteen episodes, the Village keeps Six engaged in a deadly game of cat and mouse, always managing to prevent him from slipping out of its grasp. But in The Prisoner’s seventeenth and final installment, McGoohan’s character manages to turn the tables with help from a couple of unlikely allies. The first, a young man referred to by the Villagers as Number Forty-Eight, embodies the defiant weirdness of late sixties counterculture, communicating exclusively by means of hip, irreverent, but also basically incomprehensible slang. The second ally, in a twist, is Number Two, who has become just as dissatisfied with his role as Number Six.

Suddenly, the well-ordered Village has to contend with what one of its leaders describes as “two forms of revolt. The first—uncoordinated youth rebelling against nothing it can define. The second—an established, successful, secure member of the Establishment turning upon and biting the hand that feeds him.” The Villagers respond by staging a show trial, charging Forty-Eight and Two with a series of absurd and revealing “crimes” (“unhealthy habits of speech and dress not in accordance with general practice”; “betraying the trust of the Establishment”; “going over to the Other Side”; and so on). However, the trial descends into chaos, giving Number Six and the two defendants a chance to make their escape. Arming themselves, they shoot their way out of the Village, hijack a van, and flee to London.

It’s a moment of triumph—or, at least, it should be. Yet something remains indefinably but very definitely wrong. The clues are everywhere. At one point, McGoohan’s Six confronts a cloaked figure whom he believes to be Number One, only to discover his own doppelganger concealed beneath the cloak. Later, after the escapees reach London, Number Two quietly joins a throng of officials entering the Houses of Parliament, calling into question his rebellion against the “Establishment.” Most alarming of all, though, are the recurring suggestions that Number Six is still under Village control, even though he believes himself to be living freely back in London. The Prisoner’s enigmatic final scenes raise a disturbing possibility: maybe the Village itself is more than just a physical location; maybe, instead, it’s a system of people and ideas, a system apparently capable of extending itself throughout the world.

As a child, I watched The Prisoner as a straightforward (if unusual) espionage thriller. Recently, I tried rewatching it—and discovered not a thriller but a prescient political allegory. The power struggle that plays out in the Village, pitting jaded elites and rebellious “free men” against an increasingly repressive and reactionary “Establishment,” reproduces in miniature the one historian Jeremi Suri has described in Power and Protest, his prize-winning book on the origins of détente during the Cold War. Unlike The Prisoner, Power and Protest is not designed to entertain: Suri’s book is serious, scholarly, and challenging. But it is packed with bold claims which make it a must-read for anyone interested in international relations. It also sheds light on the development and political significance of sixties counterculture—the same counterculture Patrick McGoohan channeled to create The Prisoner.

book cover for Jeremi Suri's book, power and protest

Suri’s narrative begins in the 1950s when rising East-West tensions and the threat of nuclear destruction placed new strains on political systems the world over. In response, frustrated statesmen in China (Mao Zedong), France (Charles De Gaulle), the Soviet Union (Nikita Khrushchev), and the United States (John F. Kennedy) experimented with new, charismatic styles of politics designed to transcend the deadlocked Cold War. At the same time, an international “language of dissent” invented by anti-establishment writers took root on university campuses on both sides of the Iron Curtain. Young people rejected the logic of the Cold War and denounced the overblown, usually unfulfilled promises of charismatic politicians. They also “grew visibly more violent” until, in 1968, their “rebellion produced revolution.” Challenges from above and below, from the Village elite and their restive, unruly prisoners, pushed the international system to the breaking point.

However, as the rest of Suri’s book shows, the international system fought back. In order to defeat the global “revolution” of 1968, a new fraternity of world leaders—led by West Germany’s Willy Brandt, the Soviet Union’s Leonid Brezhnev, U. S. president Richard Nixon, and a chastened, more conservative Mao—“colluded to stabilize their societies and preserve their authority.” Détente, the programmed de-escalation of the Cold War, helped repair their damaged reputations and allowed them to prioritize social welfare instead of military preparedness. Unfortunately, the new politics of peace and well-being was also “profoundly conservative” and deeply manipulative. “The promise of detente,” Suri explains, “became a stick with which to beat domestic critics. . . . It made the sacrifices of the Cold War appear ‘normal,’ and it further isolated policymakers from their publics. In this way, detente contributed to the pervasive skepticism of our postmodern age.”

Richard Nixon and Leonid Brezhnev conversing during Brezhnev's 1973 visit to the United States
Richard Nixon and Leonid Brezhnev conversing during Brezhnev’s 1973 visit to the United States. Source: National Archives.

Power and Protest thus narrates the prehistory of the “post-truth” world we live in today. It also reveals that The Prisoner, produced on the eve of revolution in 1967–68, was both remarkably insightful and ultimately blind to the limitations of its own anti-establishment critique. In an early episode, Number Six asks Number Two “which side” of the Iron Curtain Number One and his henchmen stand on. Two’s response speaks volumes. “It doesn’t matter which side runs the Village,” he tells Six. “[B]oth sides are becoming identical. What has been created is an international community, a blueprint for world order. When both sides realize they’re the same, they’ll see this is the pattern for the future.” Like the revolutionaries of 1968, Six chooses to rebel against this dystopian vision of a peaceful but uniformly repressive international system. But ultimately, neither the Prisoner nor his real-world counterparts were able to realize their desire for freedom. Instead, thanks to the détente they inadvertently catalyzed, they remained prisoners of the Cold War.

John Gleb is a doctoral candidate in the Department of History at the University of Texas at Austin and a Graduate Student Fellow at the Clements Center for National Security.

The views and opinions expressed in this article or video are those of the individual author(s) or presenter(s) and do not necessarily reflect the policy or views of the editors at Not Even Past, the UT Department of History, the University of Texas at Austin, or the UT System Board of Regents. Not Even Past is an online public history magazine rather than a peer-reviewed academic journal. While we make efforts to ensure that factual information in articles was obtained from reliable sources, Not Even Past is not responsible for any errors or omissions.

Review of Beatriz Allende: A Revolutionary Life in Cold War Latin America (2020), by Tanya Harmer

banner image for Review of Beatriz Allende: A Revolutionary Life in Cold War Latin America (2020), by Tanya Harmer

At about nine o’clock on the morning of September 11, 1973, Beatriz Allende, the daughter of Socialist President Salvador Allende, arrived with her younger sister Isabel at the Chilean presidential palace in the heart of downtown Santiago.[1] The military coup that would end her father’s presidency, and Chile’s dream of a peaceful revolution, had begun around dawn that day. Though seven months pregnant at the time, Beatriz had come to join forces with the presidential bodyguard to defend, by force of arms if necessary, the legitimate presidency of her father and her country’s democratic transition to socialism.

Beatriz had acted as her father’s right hand on the executive team since he took office. But in recent months, as signs of an imminent overthrow became clear, President Allende had begun to pull his daughter back from the political front lines in order to protect her. That morning, in spite of her resistance, he ordered Beatriz to leave, along with her sister and five other women. In the words of Tanya Harmer, author of Beatriz Allende: A Revolutionary Life in Cold War Latin America, Allende’s effort to shield his daughter from the impending attack “amounted to an act of betrayal from the person Beatriz loved most,” and he did it “because she was a woman” (212). Harmer’s recent monograph provides serious readers of history with a riveting close-up of how Chileans experienced their revolutionary years, focused especially on how leftist longings for a more just and equitable society challenged culturally-determined presuppositions. Like Harmer’s acclaimed masterwork, Allende’s Chile and the Interamerican Cold War (2011), this book prioritizes local agency and conflict over international interference to show how Chileans struggled to define their own history. 

The primary subject of this volume, Beatriz Allende, shines in public memory as Allende’s favorite child, the middle daughter who became the son he never had. Educated in revolutionary politics from an early age, Beatriz followed in her father’s footsteps, first into the medical profession and then into Socialist Party militance. Though not outright wealthy, the family belonged to Chile’s comfortable intellectual middle class. They vacationed at the upscale seaside town of Algarrobo and, like any Chileans of means, they had domestic servants who did all their cooking and cleaning. The Allende clan could not be called armchair socialists, by any means, but they did not actually belong to the masses of working poor their political cause championed.   

A large crowd marches along a tree-lined street in Santiago in this black-and-white photograph from 1964. Members of the crowd are holding aloft several large banners, all of which indicate support for Salvador Allende. Two banners are easily legible; they read "Telefonicos con 1 Allende" and "Trabajadores municipales con Allende."
Supporters of Salvador Allende’s 1964 presidential campaign parade in the streets of Santiago. Allende lost the election of 1964 but would go on to win the presidency six years later. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

As a medical student at the University of Concepción, Beatriz grew close to the Enríquez brothers, Luciano Cruz, and Bautista Van Schouwen. Together with Beatriz’s first cousin, Andrés Pascal, they would become founding members of Chile’s most radical leftist organization, the Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria, usually remembered by its acronym, MIR. After some training in Cuba, and in opposition to her father’s lifelong commitment to the peaceful road to socialism, Beatriz embraced MIR’s option for armed insurrection as the only path to a meaningful revolution. She never made the switch to MIR, instead acting as a permanent go-between, informally linking MIR with Salvador Allende’s leftist coalition. In 1967, she did become a part of a very secret armed faction of the Socialist Party, called Organa, that mobilized in support of Bolivia’s ELN—Ejército de Liberación Nacional—as it attempted, in vain, to revive Che Guevara’s ill-fated insurrection there. Committed to actual armed participation, she found that the elenos (as ELN members styled themselves) protected her, partly because she was a woman, but mostly because she was Salvador Allende’s daughter and more valuable to their cause if she managed to stay alive.

Beatriz married a Cuban intelligence agent, Luis Fernández Oña, in 1970. Through him, she had already become a backchannel liaison between Allende’s coalition and the Cuban high command. After the coup in 1973, Beatriz fled to Cuba with her husband. She had her second child in Cuba, and she found herself thrust into a very public role, representing the exiled Chilean left, and the many victims of the military dictatorship back home. As the government of General Augusto Pinochet became an international pariah, Beatriz became an international celebrity, but it was not a role she wanted.

Though fascinated by Cuba, Beatriz found no peace there. Cuban authorities detained Loti, her long-time housekeeper—who had been caught in a lesbian relationship—and sent her off for reeducation. Fidel’s revolution considered homosexuality, and even feminism, to be capitalist vices that would naturally fade away in the socialist utopia of tomorrow. Moreover, classless revolutionary Cuba could offer no replacement for Loti. As a consequence, in her early thirties, with her fine medical training and her unfulfilled revolutionary aspirations, Beatriz Allende found herself isolated in a foreign land, facing the unknown challenge of traditional feminine domesticity for the first time (249). To make matters worse, news of the assassinations of former comrades, including Miguel Enríquez and Orlando Letelier, began to trickle in, making Beatriz feel increasingly helpless. That fatal combination drove her into a severe depression. She died by her own hand in 1977.

While Harmer’s work is rich in personal details and human drama, she did not set out to write a biography. Her study focuses on the catalytic agency of an extraordinary person pivotally situated in the unfolding of many previously untold historical connections. In the process, she reveals many previously unrecounted historical connections. The author’s sensitivity to the particularities of Chilean revolutionary culture is unparalleled. Elegantly written and abundantly sourced in memoirs, letters, and periodical sources—much of them from Cuba—Harmer’s skillful treatment of extensive personal interviews makes this work unique and remarkable. Harmer has created a rigorous, unbiased, but very gendered study, showing how the patriarchal patterns of even the most revolutionary movements consigned Beatriz Allende and others like her to a very particular kind of evolving agency. Ultimately, the author attributes her protagonist’s untimely demise to the internal contradictions and unviability of that gendered but revolutionary role.

Through the lens of this one conflicted revolutionary life, Harmer shines light on the many contingencies that contributed to the Chilean revolutionary phenomenon. Her study examines, for example, the growing influence of Chilean youth in the long decade of the 1960s. Compounded by the disruptions of an enormous earthquake in 1960, which united young people in massive solidarity efforts, sheer numbers, a fact that can be attributed to the post-war baby boom, made Chilean twenty-somethings a new and powerful contingent. Universities became the room where it happened. As Harmer observes, “university student numbers rose from 7,800 in 1940 to just over 20,000 in 1957, and 120,000 by 1970” (10). That university experience, as Beatriz knew it, represented a quantum leap in the political potential of the younger generation.

But even that giant leap would not be enough. In the most hopeful early days of the Popular Unity experiment, Harmer observes that “the opposition was strong and united. Indeed, the Left’s defensive measures . . . paled in comparison with the Right’s organization, resources, and propensity for violence” (196). Right wing women, as historian Margaret Power observed in her foundational study from 1998, formed the ideological bedrock of that opposition.[2] But there were left wing women, too, with unique struggles, decisive agency, and an untold story. Harmer has opened a new window on them.  

A black-and-white photograph of Salvador Allende and his Minister of Labor and Social Welfare, Mireya Baltra, in the midst of a large crowd of people wearing suits. Both Allende and Baltra are smiling; the President is handing his minister a document.
President Allende photographed with his Minister of Labor and Social Welfare, Mireya Baltra, a member of the Communist Party of Chile. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

Despite its many strengths as a work of multilayered analysis, the book has some flaws. One is a simple editorial failure: a propensity to reproduce grammatical and orthographic errors in the Spanish language. Población, a Chilean settlement of the urban poor, has an accent mark in the singular form. Poblaciones, in the plural, does not, but Harmer’s work consistently maintains that telltale accent mark. This kind of defect does not detract from the overall argument, nor from the English reader’s appreciation. Chilean scholars, on the other hand, ever mindful of their legalistic traditions, especially when it comes to proper Spanish grammar and spelling, may be frustrated by these minor orthographic failings.

A second misunderstanding goes deeper. The author observes that, in her mid-thirties, Beatriz didn’t even know how to fry an egg. This is by no means an overstatement, but the author leaves it at that, as if to say, it would only occur to the unjust patriarchal universe to expect that women should be frying eggs (185, 233). In making such statements, Harmer elides over the fact that an ignorance of domestic skills in Chile often revealed more about social class than about gender roles. This was especially true for the revolutionary left. What good was a revolutionary who could shoot an AK-47, but then needed to be fed by someone else at the guerrilla hideout?

Among pobladores, Chile’s shantytown dwellers, anyone who could not buy fresh bread, fry an egg and slice a tomato would be esteemed pituco—haughty or snobbish—a fish out of water. In the informal economy of extreme poverty, where women could earn cash frying the eggs uptown, their unemployed menfolk often took care of housekeeping by default. Egg frying, a fact of life for the poor, became an asset and a virtue for a true guerrilla fighter.

Harmer recognizes that with regard to gender equality, it would be “unfair to expect the Left to have adopted practices not found anywhere else in society” (14). In fact, it would be anachronistic. And Beatriz Allende never identified as a feminist, but as a revolutionary guerrilla fighter. But cultural presuppositions allotted her only a supporting role. In exile after the coup, travelling between solidarity events, she commented to a friend that she had grown tired of being “Allende’s daughter” (260). She wanted to be Tania, the legendary compañera of Che Guevara, who supposedly died fighting by his side in the Bolivian altiplano (257). Though Beatriz Allende never achieved that dream, her experience made it possible for other women to dream it, too. Her prominence helped to shape a vocabulary that, as Harmer points out, contributed to “a searing call to end gender violence” during the 2019 protests in Chile (274). That call went viral worldwide.

[1] Isabel Allende, the daughter of the President, should not be confused with her second cousin, Isabel Allende, the acclaimed author of the novel The House of the Spirits (1982).

[2] Margaret Power, Right Wing Women in Chile: Feminine Power and the Struggle Against Allende, 1964-1973 (New York: Routledge, 1998)

The views and opinions expressed in this article or video are those of the individual author(s) or presenter(s) and do not necessarily reflect the policy or views of the editors at Not Even Past, the UT Department of History, the University of Texas at Austin, or the UT System Board of Regents. Not Even Past is an online public history magazine rather than a peer-reviewed academic journal. While we make efforts to ensure that factual information in articles was obtained from reliable sources, Not Even Past is not responsible for any errors or omissions.

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