Latin American Communist Conference

(First Conference of the Communists of Latin America), held in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on June 1–12, 1929. Participants included 38 delegates representing Communist parties and groups from Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Cuba, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, and Venezuela, as well as representatives from the Comintern, the Communist Youth International (KIM), and Communist parties from the USA and France. The Communist Party of Chile participated in the preparations for the conference.

Among the chief topics considered at the Latin American Communist Conference were the international situation and the threat of war, the anti-imperialist struggle and tactical questions, the trade union question, the peasant question, the racial problem, and the Communist youth movement. The conference defined the agrarian and anti-imperialist character of the imminent revolution in the countries of Latin America and directed the working class to achieve the leading role in the revolution and to form an alliance with the peasantry and the proletarianized urban petite bourgeoisie. In addition, the conference recommended that the party be built on a territorial-productive basis, according to the principles of democratic centralism. The conference criticized right-opportunistic and ultraleft views on questions of the content of the revolution and on the tactics of Communist parties. The Latin American Communist Conference contributed to the unity of the Communist movement in the Latin American countries.