Jorge Arrate "The Chilean Popular Movement: Historical Overview and Future Perspectives" February 25, 2004

Jorge Arrate,spoke on "The Chilean Popular Movement: Historical Overview and Future Perspectives" on Wednesday, February 25 in the Women's Faculty Club. Jorge Arrate has been a faculty member at the University of Chile, the University of Santiago, Catholic University of Chile and UC Berkeley. He was a Minister in the Allende, Aylwin and Frei administrations and the Ambassador of Chile to Argentina during the Lagos government. Currently, he is the President of the Board of the University of Arts and Social Sciences (ARCIS) in Santiago, Chile.

The History and Future Challenges of the Chilean Left
Tiffany Linton Page, Department of Sociology

Until young Chileans learn about their country’s past, Chile will not be able to address the challenges facing it in the future, according to Chilean historian Jorge Arrate. More than half the current Chilean population was born after the bloody coup of 1973, grew up under the repressive Pinochet regime and never learned about the history of the Left in the South American nation.

Professor Arrate emphasized the importance of reflecting on the past to understand the issues facing Chilean citizens today. “The past is conditioning the future. In the past we made some choices, and those choices meant that we were going along certain paths that are conditioning what the future will be.”

One of the most serious problems currently facing Chile is the political apathy among the young, who now constitute the majority of the population. According to Arrate, 86 percent of young people are not registered to vote. Mobilizing Chilean youth, he argued, should be the focus of the Left.

Although the overall wealth of the country has increased, Arrate believes that income inequality remains a serious problem. Chile continues to be a very hierarchical society, in which social origin and family wealth are determinative. He criticized the Socialist Party, currently in power, for accepting free market ideology and failing to recognize the continuing importance of regulating the market.

Professor Arrate spent the bulk of his lecture describing the history of the struggle for equality and freedom in Chile. Following independence from Spain in 1810, a small elite controlled the Chilean state and economy. In 1850, the first Leftist organization, the Sociedad de Igualdad (Equality Society), was established based on socialist ideas.

In the late 19th century, the struggle for equality of religions and the right of civil marriage began with the creation of the Radical Party. Chris Emilio Recabbaren, who is considered the father of the Chilean labor movement, arose out of a splinter organization consisting of lower middle-class professionals.

At this point, the first debate took place over how to divide the revenues from the exploitation of Chile’s natural resources. Progressive liberals wanted the state to collect the income from Chile’s mines and invest it in industry, while conservatives were willing to allow British capitalists to control the mines.

By the last quarter of the 19th century, anarchism and Marxism had reached Chile via Argentina, which had greater contact with Europe. In contrast to Argentina and Uruguay, Chile did not have a European style socialist party. Rather, the Chilean Left was born out of popular struggles, developing in relative isolation from the ideas of European intellectuals. “The worker movements in the Chilean Left during all this period didn’t benefit from the contribution of intellectuals,” said Arrate. “The Left in Chile was constituted in a much more provincial environment with less European influence.”

At the end of the 19th century, the workers movement began flourishing in Northern and Central Chile. The Sociedades de Resistencia (Resistance Societies), anarchist organizations, developed among workers in the nitrate mines in Northern Chile. These societies and the trade unions first used the strike as a tactic and first raised important social issues. In 1906, thousands of mineworkers went on strike demanding that they be paid in cash, rather than coupons. The mines were paralyzed. The government retaliated with extreme force, killing thousands.

The Left recovered from this repression and workers continued to organize. Recabbaren formed the Partido Obrero Socialista (Socialist Worker’s Party) in 1912. It later became the Communist Party. Workers in northern Chile were affiliated with that party, while industrial workers in Santiago and Valparaiso organized along anarchist lines.

During the early 20th century, the Popular Movement expanded to include student and women’s organizations. The Asociación Organizada Para la Alimentacion Nacional (The Organized Association for National Food Provision) was created to demand cheap food and became an extremely large movement with a major impact on Chilean society.

The Socialist Party was established in 1933 after a failed attempt by a group of socialists to declare Chile a socialist republic. During this period, there was a division in the Communist party. The former anarchists, turned Trotskyites, joined the Socialist party in 1936, maintaining their distrust of the idea of the bureaucratic state.

The Communists started promoting the idea of the Popular Front after successes in Spain and France, said Arrate. The Socialists, though hesitant, accepted the idea along with the Radicals and the trade unions. The Popular Front floated a candidate who won the 1938 presidential election.

Struggles between the Socialists and the Communists persisted. The Communist party in Chile, which had three ministers in government, was prohibited once the Cold War began. The Socialist party, wanting to remain autonomous from the USSR, cultivated a Latin American identity.

Arrate described how during the 1950s, future president Salvador Allende helped reunify the Left. The labor union Central Unitaria de Trabajadores and the coalition Frente de Acción Popular (Popular Action Front) were formed. The Left in Chile was inspired by the success of the Left in Cuba who came to power through the Cuban revolution of 1959. However, Allende maintained the position that Chile would seek change by democratic means as opposed to via guerilla warfare. He constructed the idea of the Chilean exception, the democratic path to social change.

In 1964, Allende was defeated in the presidential elections by Frei, a Christian Democrat. The Frei government nationalized half of the nation’s copper mines and began agrarian reform, which Allende later extended. In 1969, the Christian Democratic party became divided and some young intellectuals formed a new Marxist party called the Movimiento de Accion Popular Unitario (Popular Unity Action Movement).

In 1970, Allende was elected, forming a broad coalition called the Popular Unity government. This constituted a real shift in Chilean history because it was the first time that the people who were not part of the elite gained power. According to Arrate: “There is no other moment in Chilean history in which there was a sign that the domination of the system was on the verge of change.”

Then, on September 11th, 1973, a military coup took place, installing Pinochet as dictator of Chile. Thousands of members and supporters of the Popular Unity government were tortured and murdered. The Left again became divided as they employed different tactics in response to the coup.

The transition to democracy began in 1990. Chile has yet to fully call the Pinochet government to account for its criminal acts. Some members of the military have been placed in prison, but Pinochet remains free.

Arrate says that the transition has been constrained by Pinochet’s 1980 constitution, the fact that his military remained intact and because conservative forces fear the return of Leftist principles. Despite these challenges, Arrate believes the task for the future is to eliminate social and economic inequality and incorporate the young into the political process.

Jorge Arrate is the President of the Board of the University of Arts and Social Sciences in Santiago, Chile and was formerly an ambassador and government minister. Professor Arrate spoke as part of the Latin American Perspectives Series on February 25, 2004.

Professor Arrate spoke about the differences between the Chilean popular movement and other populist movements in Latin America, as well as throughout the world. He also took questions on his personal experiences during the Allende government, on the current policies of parties of the left in Chile, and also about the role of young people in the future of Chilean politics.