Heroic Creation and the Socialist City: The Making of Villa El Salvador

Abstract J.C. Mariátegui believed Indo‐American socialism would be neither calque nor copy, but heroic creation. This article explores an attempt at heroic creation in 1970s Peru: the Self‐Managed Urban Commune of Villa El Salvador (Villa). Putting Marxism in conversation with decolonial theory, I argue Villa shows universality and particularity can be reconciled under socialism. Founded in 1971 as a settlement for Peru's informal working class, Villa married an ultra‐modernist urban plan with long‐standing indigenous traditions. Villa was soon constituted as a self‐managed urban commune inspired by socialist Yugoslavia and the rural Andes. The society that emerged aspired to be radically democratic and democratically radical. Social organisation was active from the lowest levels while the left flourished alongside an impressive women's movement. An ethos of solidarity permeated Villa. Although Villa's socialist experiment eventually faltered, its early history shows how to reconcile planning and self‐management, socialism and indigeneity, and, indeed, universality and particularity.