Situating Ruy Mauro Marini (1932-1997): movements, struggles, and intellectual communities

Ruy Mauro Marini was one of the intellectual giants of 20th century Marxism, having produced one of the most theoretically rich and rigorous accounts of capitalist development and underdevelopment in Latin America, at the heart of which he convincingly located labor superexploitation. Regardless, his work would remain unread and unavailable for much of the latter part of his life. The objective of this chapter is to put the life and work of Ruy Mauro Marini in its social context, particularly for first-time readers in the global North. The span of his life covers some of the most intense periods of class struggle in Latin America‘s twentieth century; in all of this revolutionary and then counter-revolutionary turmoil, Marini took part in revolutionary organizations throughout the continent, transplanting his political focus with every new thrust into exile, but moving consistently in the direction common to the generation of 1968 in the Third World, which positioned its pursuit of socialism in the particular histories and social composition of their respective social formations and, by necessary extension, in the worldwide struggle against imperialism. The essay also visits Marini‘s seminal contributions to a series of debates on the roots of Latin American underdevelopment. Finally, it draws heavily on Marini's own memoirs, writings, as well as tributes and testimonials written by former students, friends and comrades.