Editorial Note LATIN AMERICA has for long provided the prototype ofunderdevelop-ment. With tiny oligarchies in cahoots with multinationals cornering the bulk of the land and pushing the people into abysmal poverty, with economies dominated by foreign capital, frequently subjected to IMF dictates, and profoundly vulnerable to every little tremor in world capitalist commerce, Latin American countries have necessarily been saddled with a string of corrupt and murderous military dictatorships, propped up by U S imperialisjn, which regards the region as its own backyard. Every democratic advance, every attempt at reforming the economy, at curbing But this history illustrates another fact as well, namely, that the tide of popular advance cannot be stemmed, that imperialism, notwithstanding the mdssive suffering it inflicts and the huge death toll it exacts, is historically on the decline. The Cuban Revolution was the first severe blow against U.S imperialism in Latin America. After that there has been Nicaragua. Yet neither Fedel's guerrillas nor the Sandinistas began consciously as fighters against U S imperialism. The