Additionally, the author thought to include an essay on the political and ideological evolution of Peru, but as the number of its pages seemed excessive, he planned to develop this subject in a separate book.

Beyond the successes or failures of the author in his goal of contributing to the socialist critique of the problems of Peru, this book had the merit of encouraging new work on the interpretation of the Peruvian reality and start the search for different conceptions that diverge from the traditional understanding.

The militarism born from defeat took power, but soon the old capitalist class that emerged in the days of guano and saltpeter resumed its place in the guidelines of national politics.

• The illusion of rubber • The rise of Peruvian products in the world market, which generates a rapid growth of the national private fortune.

The author's interest in the complete development of capitalism in Peru was due to the fact that, according to the communist ideology, this phase was necessary for the emergence of the socialist revolution.

In the Sierra or "mountain range", the region inhabited mainly by the Indians, Mariátegui's time subsisted the most barbarous and omnipotent feudality.

The indigenous congresses, distorted in recent years by bureaucratism, did not yet represent a program; but their first meetings indicated a mode of communication to the Indians of different regions.

The Spanish colonizer, who had not developed the idea of the economic value of man, established a policy of depopulation, that entailed the extermination of the indigenous mass (ethnocide).

Although the republican government abolished mita (forced labor), encomiendas (entrustment), etc., the landed aristocracy continued to be the dominant class.

While the provincial communities maintained a very limited advancement in its production system, the coastal provinces catered to the interests of foreign merchants, and were more technologically developed, although its exploitation still rested on feudal practices and principles.

[19] The defense of the indigenous community, assumed by many thinkers such as Castro Pozo, did not rest on abstract principles of justice or traditionalist sentimentality, but on concrete economic and social reasons.

The best valleys on the coast were planted with cane and cotton and formed immense latifundia, while food crops occupied a much smaller area and were run by small landowners and ranchers.

The orientation of coastal agriculture to the interests of foreign capitals (agro-export) prevents the testing and adoption of new crops of national necessity.

It was Dr. Manuel Vicente Villarán who most vigorously defended the adoption of the North American model, aimed at the training of businessmen and not only of literati or scholars.

In Peru, this phenomenon occurred due to the survival of the semi-feudal economic structure, but it also happened in Argentina, despite being a more industrialized and democratized country.

The University remained, in general, faithful to the scholastic tradition, conservative and Spanish; this prevented him from fulfilling a progressive and creative role in national life.

Moreover, when Dr. Manuel Vicente Villarán took over the rector of the University of San Marcos (1922–1924), a period of collaboration between teaching and students began, which prevented the renewal of the struggle for reform.

[28] In this final section of the essay, the author exposes the two ideological positions that they debated about the educational model that was to be imposed in Peru, at the beginning of the 20th century.

Villarán defended the North American model, with a practical orientation (formation of businessmen), which was consistent with the nascent capitalism that was being formed in Peru.

While Deustua raised the educational problem in a purely philosophical field; to say Mariátegui, represented the old aristocratic mentality of the latifundista caste.

The old criticism of anticlericalism (atheist, secular and rationalist) of relating religiosity with obscurantism was already overcome (which does not prevent that still some, naively or ignorantly, continue to believe in that relationship).

[30] According to Mariátegui, the Spanish conquest was the last crusade, that is, an essentially military and religious enterprise, carried out jointly by soldiers and missionaries (the sword and the cross).

The high clergy initially showed loyalty to the Spanish monarchy, but like the landowning aristocracy, it accepted the Republic when it saw that it maintained the colonial structures.

The personal performance of Francisco de Paula González Vigil, a clergyman famous for his criticism of the Roman Curia, did not belong properly to liberalism.

The radicalism of Manuel González Prada emerged in the late nineteenth century was the first anticlerical agitation of Peru but lacked effectiveness for not having provided a socio-economic program.

During the Republic, the first organized political parties admitted decentralization into their programs, but they never developed it when they came to power, leaving this idea in simple theoretical speculation.

In the late 1960s at a conference at the University of San Cristobal de Humanga in Ayacucho, Peru, Guzmán praised Mariátegui's Seven Interpretive Essays, declaring it to be "an unshakable document" and that it "is still very much alive.

"[35] Marc Becker, a professor of Latin American Studies at Truman State University, also praised Seven Interpretive Essays in his book José Carlos Mariátegui: An Anthology.

Becker states that "Mariátegui presents a brilliant analysis of Peruvian, and by extension Latin American, problems from a Marxist point of view.

Belaunde, a defender of Catholic thought with progressive social tendencies, wanted to raise an open debate with Mariátegui, but his death in 1930 prevented him from doing so.