Márquez & Politics

While reading One Hundred Years of Solitude, I paid close attention to how Marquez revealed his political beliefs through the novel. I think that it is clear that Marquez is an anti imperialist and that he definitely sides and shows support for socialism. He criticizes the Conservatives greatly and speaks of their corruption. Marquez reveals his anti imperialist views through thr banana massacre and how it helped to lead and quicken Macondo's demise. However, it seemed to me that sometimes Marquez didn't always show complete support of the revolutionary forces.  Through colonel Aureliano Buendia, the reader is able to see how pointless these wars are because they don't always lead to progression. They become repetive. I think this definitely is Marquez trying to portray Latin American politics as a whole, for revolutions were iniated frequently during this time. Most of the revolutions had the same vision, which was to replace Conservative regimes with a more socialist government. They were very unorganized and many were seen as useless as Colonel Aureliano Buemdia did. Also, Marquez was a friend of Fidel Castro and supported the Cuban revolutionaries, which definitely tells us a lot about his political ideology. Despite his support for socialism, I think Marquez didn't side with revolutionaries always. I think he tries to make that point that the Conservatives needed to be overthrown but that revolutionaries did cause some corruption also and didn't always do what was best for the people, but instead often fought for pride.