The Working Group will articulate the legacy of Marxist critique (in its various dimensions) with an assessment of contemporary capitalist dynamics. Thus, it aims to be a space for theoretical production on socio-political reality, while also serving as a space for preserving Marxist memory. By Marxist memory, we refer to the theoretical accumulation that the region has produced in the last century, both in response to national situations and in dialogue with other geo-cultural areas.

As is well known, the current civilizational crisis demands an explanation of its structural, regional, temporal, and spatial components. This necessitates drawing upon the theoretical tools forged from the mobilization of peoples and their struggles. Latin American Marxism, understood in its broadest sense, is the instrument we rely on to respond to the global crisis. The Group's proposal addresses both the historical dimension and the construction of memory, as well as the commitment to contribute to understanding the current conjuncture facing the Latin American region.

When we speak of Marxist history and memory, we are referring, of course, to the theoretical legacies that the region has bequeathed: popular pedagogy, social theory on underdevelopment, critical geography, the critique of political economy, Gramscian reflection on the State, among others. Recovering this vast body of knowledge is necessary because the current relationship between the State, society, and the global market is in a clear process of decomposition—at least in its dominant neoliberal form—and new articulations are emerging. Amidst this transition, we find the events that mark the region: forms of revolt, electoral struggles, the emergence of new lefts and new right-wing movements, the formation of a common sense seeking political orientation, the revival of sovereign perspectives for States, the persistence of communitarian or traditional forms, and so on.

Marxism, and especially Latin American Marxism, has demonstrated a remarkable capacity for analyzing socio-political realities, as well as for responding to the dynamics of the unfolding of the value-form of capital and the articulation and subordination of social practices across diverse temporalities. Heirs to the ideas of figures like José Carlos Mariátegui, Luis Emilio Recabarren, José Aricó, and Bolívar Echeverría, who have delved into the theoretical dimensions—analysis of major trends—the political dimensions—of the State and its mediations—and the social dimensions—of the responses of classes, groups, and peoples—have, in turn, produced a body of work of great quality and variety. This is because the region faces shared structural problems and challenges related to integration into the global market, but also specificities inherent in the development of nation-building.

The interplay between structural order and regional specificities is precisely one of the strengths of Latin American Marxism. Over nearly a century, the region has seen a series of intellectual exercises dedicated to understanding the complexities of the subcontinent's social order. The Marxist conceptual framework upon which these exercises unfolded gave rise to complex interpretations and analyses that addressed both the global development of capitalist relations of production and the national and regional particularities within which that development took place. As has been frequently noted, these analytical and interpretive exercises escaped the impoverishing dichotomy of uncritically adopting Marxism as a philosophy of universal history and characterizing Latin America as a singular space irreducible to the concepts of Marxist theory.

Marxist theoretical analysis is not merely a reference to Marx, but a specific form of understanding that, due to its intrinsic historicity, demands constant critical revision in light of both social and political transformations. In this sense, the investigation of the archives of Latin American Marxism also seeks to respond explicitly and systematically to the theoretical elaborations that regional and global realities require. The recovery of Latin American Marxist theoretical elaborations is intended as a fundamental input for shaping scientific and critical analyses of our global capitalist condition. Following the path of the most significant contributions of Latin American Marxism, we propose to account for the problems of Latin American reality from a perspective that takes into account its particularities while simultaneously situating them within the global development of capitalism. Thus, the treatment that Latin American Marxism has given to problems such as social classes, the State, dependency and imperialism will be taken up again in an updated analysis that allows us to account for the current state of these problems at the regional and global level.