Hugo Blanco

(1934 - 2023)

Hugo Blanco was leader of the Quechua peasant uprising in the Cuzco region of Peru in the early 1960s. He was captured by the military and sentenced to 25 years in El Fronton Island prison. While in prison, he wrote Land or Death: The Peasant Struggle in Peru. An international defence campaign that gained the support of such figures as Ernesto Che Guevara, Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, and Bertrand Russell succeeded in winning his freedom in 1970. After a period in exile in Mexico, Chile, and Sweden, Blanco returned to Peru where he was elected to the national parliament on a united left slate. He has continued to play an active role in Peru's indigenous, campesino, and environmental movements.

Articles
Message to Peruvian People, 1963
The Need for a Revolutionary Party in Peru, 1963
On Guerrilla Fighters and Militia, 1964
Comments on Alain Krivine and Pierre Frank's Document "Again, and Always, the Question of the International", 1972
Argentina and Bolivia—The Balance Sheet (with Peter Camejo, Joseph Hansen, Anibal Lorenzo, Nahuel Moreno), 1973
A State of Fuji-shock (interview), 1991
The Environmentalism of the People, 1991
Our Roots, Our Revolution, 1992
Stop the Poisoning of Peru, 1993
Chile: The Lesson That Venezuela Learned?, 2007
A Triumphant Advance in Ecuador, 2007
The Fight for Indigenous Rights in the Andes Today, 2008
The Struggle in Amazonia: A Clash of Cultures and Philosophies, 2008
Indigenous people are the vanguard of the fight to save the Earth (interview), 2009
Do Indigenous Concepts Help or Hinder in Fighting the World's Climate Crisis? (Debate with Pablo Stefanoni), 2010

Letters
Hugo Blanco Addresses the People of Peru, 1963
Hugo Blanco Correspondence, 1964
Letter to New York Young Socialist Alliance, April 1967
Hugo Blanco Thanks Those Whose Efforts Saved His Life, October 1967
A Letter, January 5, 1968
Letter to Livio Maitan, December 12, 1969
Letter to Joseph Hansen, January 27, 1970
Letter to Livio Maitan, October 17, 1970
Letter to Joseph Hansen, July 17, 1975

Hugo Blanco Case (1960s)
Reports in World Outlook