It Could Happen Here Weekly 32

All of this week's episodes of It Could Happen Here put together in one large file.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey everybody, Robert Evans here, and I wanted to let
you know this is a compilation episode. So every episode
of the week that just happened is here in one
convenient and with somewhat less ads package for you to
listen to in a long stretch if you want. If
you've been listening to the episodes every day this week,
there's gotta be nothing new here for you, but you
can make your own decisions. Hey, everybody, this is it

(00:28):
could happen here. I am Robert Evans. This is a
podcast about things falling apart and sometimes how to put
them back together. Today this is another episode about the
war in Ukraine. UM. It's going to be eventually an
interview with a Ukrainian anarchist militant who is fighting on
behalf of of of Ukrainian people UM in that conflict.

(00:49):
But here's a little introduction first. So anarchists are all
about the elimination of hierarchy, and since the state tends
to be the hierarchy ist thing around, most anarchist act
this tend to either seek the destruction of the state
or at least snatches of a life lived beyond its bounds.
The most joyful moments, and anarchist organized protests tend to

(01:09):
be those brief liberatory windows where anything seems possible, and
even say middle class suburban moms might feel briefly like
they could tear down the walls of a federal courthouse.
So the idea of anarchists joining and fighting in a
national military, commanding and being commanded in the hierarchy of
the state's defense forces feels like a pretty big contradiction. Yet,

(01:30):
when the Russian Federation launched a massively expanded invasion of
Ukraine in February two, many Ukrainian anarchists announced their intention
to fight on the side of their government. Organizations like
rev DIA formed militias which have been integrated into Ukrainian
territorial defense forces. In one statement I found on the
website enough is Enough, a militant representing rev DEA explained

(01:54):
their feelings this way, Ukrainian anarchists are at war with
Russian expansionism, fascists, and the government. They have created their
own arm and call on us to join them. Every
anarchist collective and organization that understands the revolutionary task and
the internationalists struggle must transform its general anti war position
into a position of engagement by participating in or strengthening

(02:16):
the anarchist Ukrainian guerilla struggle without suspensions and by attacking
the Russian economic and political power. Victory in arms for
the anarchists in Ukraine who stand against Russian imperialism, fascist
paramilitary groups and the democratic government in Kiev. Solidarity with
the Russian and Belarusian anarchists who are crawling in the
democratic dungeons trying to stop the war. Let us give

(02:38):
space to the people and not to the imperialist dreams
that divide the planet into plots. We are forever with
the invisible people of the world who are fighting for
an inclusive, self organized and anti hierarchical world. So anarchists
with Reveda and other Ukrainian organizations are very much acting
in line with more than a century of anarchist tradition
in Ukraine. During the Russian Revolution, famed Ukrainian anarchist war

(03:02):
lord Nestor Makno was forced to make a tough decision.
Ukrainian nationalists threatened the central government that had arisen after
the fall of the Czar, and Makno and his comrades
decided to defend the democratic socialist government against the nationalists
from the book Anarchy's Cossack quote. That decision faced the
local anarchists with a problem, for it had them support

(03:24):
governmental forces here, which, even if they were of the left,
were nonetheless potential enemies of the masses. Autonomy Makno reckoned
at the time that as anarchists, we must, paradox or
no paradox, make up our minds to form a united
front with the governmental forces, keeping faith with anarchist principles.
We will find a way to rise above these contradictions,
and once the dark forces of reaction have been smashed,

(03:47):
we will broaden and deepen the course of the revolution
for the greater good of an enslaved humanity. Roughly one
month into the expanded Russian invasion, I had the chance
to sit down and interview an anarchist in Ukraine who
was participating in the resistance to Putin's regime. We conducted
our interview over the course of several days as his
fighting schedule allowed, and we did so over voice messages

(04:10):
in signal. His audio quality was thankfully quite good. I
have condensed some bits of the interview, particularly my questions,
to make things easier to understand, and I moved some
stuff around a little bit. I hope this is still
pretty clear. Now here's our source introducing himself. What I
would start you to tell about my story is um,

(04:30):
let's call me Iliah. I am an anarchist from some
neighboring country, but live in Ukraine for civilary several years.
I had to leave my homeland because of the political
repressions against anarchists there ah and for me participation in
this conflict. It has several dimensions, uh once like the

(04:58):
the first and simplest thing is that Ukraine, even though
it's like highly imperfect state like with clear new liberal
stuff and some nationalists and var right influences in the politicum,
but still is more like gray zone and more like

(05:20):
um how to say, pluralistic and free space. The state
here has much less control than in Russia and Belarus,
for example. I wanted to start by asking them about
the elephant in any room where people are discussing left
wing resistance in Ukraine, the neo Nazi as Off battalion.
I've think it's important for people to like just talk

(05:40):
about as Off and and and whatnot, and not whitewash
what's going on. There, But it strikes me that they
have a really effective social media campaign and they're they're
sneaking a lot of videos and a lot of combat
footage and whatnot out into kind of Western mainstream media
without people realizing Nazis Well. To be honest, of course, uh,

(06:03):
far right movement is much more massive in Ukraine than
any libertarian leftist movements at the moment. This I think
is obvious for you. But at the same time, sometimes
conscious or unconscious pro Russian propagandists try to portray the
situation as if it is Nazi state or something like

(06:26):
all the resistance is far right or something, but actually
general part of the state. And also, which is more important,
of the grassroots popular resistance is just a political in
sense that like most of the army, are not in
the politics, even though of course we aware that army

(06:46):
is political institution itself, uh, and especially all those people
in the villages who are now taking up arms to
guard their lands against the occupiers, they are also not
politicularly affiliated. Somehow, Ilia and many of his comrades see
anarchist participation in the struggle against Russia as necessary for

(07:09):
two reasons. The most basic is that Putin's regime is
a threat to their life and freedom to the secondary
reason is that if they don't fight, they will have
no ability to influence what happens in their country after
the war. Today. This invasion, it really constructs the threat
for the whole existence of this society, more society than

(07:30):
to the states itself, because this is a kind of
attempt to export this totalitarian hell which are constructed in
Russia more or less. And to confront this just not
let it happen is already a task I think. But
of course to come to to defend some land against

(07:56):
some occupation, for me is too simplistic for the anarchist
and revolutionary approach. So there come like more detailed reason reasons.
I would say, first of all, I really believe that
if Putting will be confronted intensively and successfully here, then

(08:18):
it's very possible that it will break the spine of
this regime in Russia, which may lead to revolutionary changes
both in Russia and Belarus, because Belarusian dictatorship exists, like
realize very much on put In support and so on. Uh.

(08:41):
And another dimension is that any force which wants to
be like really politically meaningful in Ukrainian society should take
sides in this conflict. All people who say some dogmatic
things like we are against all states again or worse,
this is not enough. Now, this is not a position

(09:03):
now uh. And now this is really popular resistance. Like
if you do not, if you do not join it
for whatever reasons, then you exclude yourself from actual political
process because the main questions will be like where are
you and where were you in these events? And of

(09:24):
course the right side is to confront this imperialist occupation. Uh.
This can really give an opportunity to like for future
and not not for future, actually already today for organizing
and mobilization of revolutionary libertarian forces UM and constructing ourselves

(09:45):
as some considerable significant movement. Like for example, now there
is this unit of territorial self defense which enarchies participate
in actively. UM. This is now already around fifty people. Well,
it was unlike unimaginable the recent years and months to

(10:10):
have some gathering of fifty enarchy antifascialists and so on
as some joint unit. But now this is the reality,
and this mobilization is made because of this invasion. Actually,
so this is something that makes sense. Ut my opinion,
and another interesting thing I think in context of comparing

(10:35):
for example UH far left and far right participating in
Ukrainian political life and the current events, that of course
for us any collaboration with the state is much more
problematic than for the Nazis, because even they're like UM

(10:55):
ideology and mindset, as far as they can evaluate, it
pretty allows them both any relations with the state structures
and also any dirty schemes both with the state, with
the business and with criminal sphere. Like UM UH, our

(11:15):
approaches are much more puristic, which is partly good of course,
but also have some consequences for us to be much
less adoptable as the movement to the real social, political,
economical realities. And for example, now currently this is still

(11:38):
a question for anarchists should we join, for example, the
Territorial Defense UH forces, which is even though somehow militia
like localized institution, but still of course like state affiliated
force orchestrated and arranged by the state and subordinated to

(11:59):
state army hierarchical system UM. But we still believe that
in current events UM this participation like it UH less
compromise us, but more give us the tools to organize
to get experience and to get subjectivity, if we can

(12:22):
say so in English, like to to to become really
an actor. UM. And still this, within this frame is
still possible to maintain UM political independence and even some
sort of structural independence. So this is not just people
are going and joining the army and that's it. They

(12:44):
are now just units UM at least up to the moment.
This is not our story and this is something at
least me personally reflecting on a lot. First, I would
like you mentioned you came to Ukraine from a neighboring
country where repression of anarchists was more severe. I am

(13:05):
interested prior to, you know, this stage of the invasion.
Obviously the first invasion happened, but prior to this escalation,
how would you describe state repression against anarchists in Ukraine,
the degree to which anarchist organizing was opposed by the state,
by the police in Ukraine. UM. And then the follow

(13:27):
up question to that would be, as you guys saw
this war building, could you elaborate on some of the
discussions that happened about what to do, about whether or
not to form militious whether or not or to what
extent to fight alongside the government. UM. So about state
repressions against the anarchists in Ukraine in recent years, I

(13:50):
would say that they were, of course UM much less
hard than for example, in Belarus and Russia. UH. Also
because like for different reasons, because of in general of
course more pluralist political culture and political situation in Ukraine,

(14:12):
but also partly because the anarchist movement in after my
Dan period was not that organized and not that combative
to really draw drive attention of the state to itself.
And also what I need to say that in maybe

(14:33):
two thousand nineteen and twenty, this attention grew dramatically after
several direct actions were taken by anarchists, for example, some
sabotage against UH cell phone towers of some Turkish affiliated
company when Turkey invaded Rojava in UH the late autumn

(14:58):
of two thousand nineteen and often and also several actions
against some police stations UH. Some of these statements were
placed in anarchist fighter website and telegram channel UH, and
so police and secret services got, how to say, very

(15:21):
energetic in their attempts to find the people who did this,
even though they didn't succeed. Actually, so several house rates
taking place. They also tried to depart one anarchist from Belarus,
Alexey Brenkov, who UH stayed in Ukraine for several years

(15:43):
while decided to move out from Lukashenko regime and so UH.
But they didn't depart actually, and also their house rates
were not successful, so they didn't succeed in the in
their repressions. So in the last couple of this picture,
UH would say vegetarian picture of zero attention of the

(16:06):
state to anarchist movement. It changed, so it started to
be like a different way before it actually also was
some direct actions believed to be related with revolutionary action
anarchist group. It was if I am not mistaken around
to Southern seventeen and so on. UH. And this also

(16:31):
verse somehow UM prosecuted by by Ukrainian secret services. Also
about organized participation of different anarchist faction UH in the
current resistance against the Putting East imperialist aggression. Like about
the most organized initiative you all in most numbered you

(16:55):
already know, but there are several others, smaller groups like
more like affinity groups or several friends participating in different units.
We even cannot count it because we even don't know
about everyone who participate. At this point, he started talking
about an anarchist militant named Igor wala Chow, who had

(17:17):
been killed by a rocket in Kharkiv a few days earlier.
Before the war. Wala Chow had expressed a desire to
organize a network of co ops across Ukraine. He had
also been active in providing support for anarchists jailed in Russia.
Ilia referred to him as having been martyred. He was participating,
I don't know, either individually or with some of his

(17:38):
friends from Karkiv, but for example, I knew nothing about
their group and their participations. There is also Black Flag,
anarchist group from Reliev which now as far as I know,
participating in territorial self defense of Kiev. At least they
released several photos and some short statement. This is something

(18:00):
organized which I know about, and apart from that, I know,
just as I already Telt told you, several affinity groups,
groups of friends. The overall picture he painted of anarchist
resistance in Ukraine was extremely atomized, due in part to
pre war concerns about avoiding state repression and the myriad
doctrinal differences between different kinds of anarchists. The war seems

(18:24):
to have had a catalyzing effect which has made larger
militant anarchist organizing possible for the first time in recent memory.
Eliah was cautiously optimistic about this, but he and his
comrades also recognized a danger here. We are trying to
avoid attention from the state services, from secret services, even

(18:44):
though we still have to collaborate UH somehow with the
military hierarchy and so on in this situation. But of
course we understand that if we will attract undesirable attention,
than probably some forces would try to destroy us or

(19:06):
somehow assimilate subjugate us. None of these scenarios are good
for us, and we aware of it. So we try
to have some publicity and at the same time to
act ourselves in the way which will not drive repressive
attention to us. Like immediately. So up to now, within

(19:29):
this frame of territorial defense UH and UH like some
civil volunteer activities and some other quite conventional activities of
participating in this conflict against the putting east Side, we
believe that we can take the ground for the new

(19:52):
conceptions and programs of lack of libertarian cause and also
some organizational developments, some organized structure which are of course
not necessarily should be illegal from from the very first steps,
but to establish some organizational basis and maybe hopefully ideological

(20:14):
basis which will help us to act more actively both
during the war and after war. Could you go into
a little more detail about the ways in which you
all do your units do kind of interface with the state.
I went on to ask how they organized their combat
units and whether or not this reflected their broader beliefs

(20:35):
about horizontal organizing. His basic answer was that the militias
have to operate within a military command structure and thus
have to be broadly organized in the same way conventional
military units are. However, being a regular their life outside
of battle was much less regimented than what regular soldiers experience.
So about military hierarchy in general, of course, territory defense

(21:01):
forces are set by the state and they are included
into the general structure of a military hierarchy of regular army.
In this sense, we are of course generally not autonomous,
and what is what's been issued by superior command we

(21:22):
should implement in life and should um fulfill these orders. However,
now territorial defense forces I would not speak about all
of them because I limited since the very start of
war within my own experience with this unit. These forces

(21:47):
have like a lot of time for constructing itself, like
our internal life not that much regulated by the higher command.
And also there is a sort of space of communication
with some commanders which are a little bit higher than us.

(22:08):
So we have like good people who our comrades, who
set this opportunity for us to get organized within this
frame of territorial defense. This was just our old friends
who decided to join some territorial defense structure as officers

(22:29):
already before uh this situation started to happen. Um So,
I think these people do really good job, and they
provide for us options to feel ourselves like comparatively free.
Of course, not in operational sense, because uh, like operational

(22:51):
frame is being set by the higher command and like
as one picture, one scheme, and in this aspect we
of course just the one of the elements of the
general plan of the fighting. Uh they put in regime
invasion here. Um so, I mean, yes, as a unit

(23:14):
we are governed by the military command, but this is
really rarely that we see anyone apart anyone of some
officers or I don't know, generals or somebody else from
above the military hierarchy. We here now occupied with the training,

(23:36):
with the organizational constructing and with like improving our internal life,
not being like really orchestrated by any military military hierarchy. People. Um,

(23:57):
so what about internal structure. It is still supposed to
be organized on the traditional army scheme, So every section
has a commander, unit in general has a commander. And
this is not an elected people. This is not like
really controlled from from below people. Um. Maybe unfortunately or

(24:21):
maybe this is necessary in the current situation. This is
really hard to estimate to evaluate at the moment. Uh.
In this manner, our internal structure in sense of like
military structure is more or less traditional for the territorial defense.
At the same time, of course, we have more democratic
internal culture. In general territorial defenses people mostly organized on

(24:47):
local basis and also out of volunteers. So people who
came here are on their good will and not on
some constrict conscription or some contract which gives you a
certain money or privileges. So because of this, you already
supposed to be somehow more free, uh and more up

(25:10):
to express your opinions UM and so on. And of
course we as somehow UM leftist affiliated anarchist unit. Of
course we encourage the internal discussion. Everyone including all the
commanders inside our regiment are subjects to critics and discussion UM,

(25:35):
even though maybe final words in the operational questions are
up to these people UH. And also it's important that
we maintain a total political autonomy, in sense that all
the groups and individuals who constructs, who construct the unit
we are part of, they like absolutely free to express

(26:01):
their analysis, political analysis, and conceptual conceptualization of both these
events and our participation in them, according to their like analysis,
their attitude, and so on. I also asked what it
was like to fight ostensibly on the same side as

(26:21):
neo Nazi elements like ASOF. While Iliah and his unit
are not anywhere close to the as OFF battalion, I
wanted to know how he and his comrades dealt with
the weird reality of being in the same broadside as
people they might have battled in the street. At one point,
I would say that before war, of course, there was
a lot of tensions between UH fascists and US, not

(26:44):
directly with us OFF, because as OF is um like
military unit. Like this is not the guys you meet
and fight in the streets, but of course there is
like they tried to set like their own how to say, mafia,
political empire I would call it, or mafia like they
had some businesses, some criminal stuff, some patronage from the

(27:08):
Interior Ministry uh and also very different how to say,
far right groups which the leaders of so called as
of movement, which is much broader than as of Battalion itself,
they tried to utilized and instrumentalized to reach their own goals.

(27:31):
And with some of these groups, so of course we
had like just street fights for example, the elements closed
to this as of movement, they try to influence a
lot the Belarusian diaspora, like a position of diaspora in Kiev.
For example, in the one year anniversary of the protests

(27:54):
of twenty twenty in Belarus, there were there was fight
in Kiev between anarchists who came to participate in demonstrations
in this demonstration and the Nazis who attacked them in
like aiming to somehow push them out from the Belarusian

(28:15):
movement to influence it in their own way. Like also
just usual street confrontation also took place. All this time
there is quite visible and active Antifa movement in Kiev
which confronted Nazis on the streets UH and blocked sometimes

(28:37):
uh UM several of their like initiatives and so on.
And also of course informational and propaganda struggle was held
by us by us UH during all this time, since
my then and of course before as well. About the
current military situation, like, of course we are now actually

(29:01):
part of one army with the right sector as of
and so on. People, we are under the same military
command UH, and if we will be tasked to fight
in the same place the same enemy, we will be
actually like the same UM like part of the barricade.

(29:23):
But this situation we need to deal with. Like there
are different opinions amongst our comrades, and here about as
off and all the parietists, they differs from that they
are actually our enemies like both now and also in
any future Ukraine, in any future scenario. Because these people

(29:45):
promote like quite obviously absolutely opposite political and social goals,
then we UM other people say that another like other
people say that now there how to say, general deadly
threat we are facing and we should fight regardless of

(30:07):
left and right and something like this to fight the
imperialist invasion. But I personally me I do not support
this second assumption and position. I see this quite not
really politically smart at my opinion. But what we here
can agree on is that if we want to confront

(30:28):
uh Nazis UH and far right parts of the Ukrainian
political and also military spectrum, then we need to develop
our own strong structure, our own strong actor UH. And
also this um somehow connected with the question about p
R you mentioned that like we need our own pr,

(30:51):
our own publicity and media work, and also our first
of all, our own conceptions and ideological blueprints which we
can um suggest to Ukrainian society and present both inside
Ukraine and abroad. And this is the work, this is

(31:11):
the challenge and duty which we need to fulfill and
hopefully like not hopefully, but actually we are working on
this already now. So if you want to combat us
off now is UH not the time maybe to accuse

(31:31):
them UH in some public statements, but this is time
to develop alternative structure which will be able to really
confront this reactionary currence. What it could happen here a podcast.

(32:00):
Have heard me introduce like probably wow, probably like seventy
or eighty times by now. But yeah, you you have
heard me introduce this podcast enough times. You probably know
what it's about. If you don't, it's about things following
apart and then putting it back together again. And today
we are doing a historical things trying to go back
together and then fell apart again episodes And with me,

(32:23):
I'm your host Christopher Wong, and with me is Nicholas Scott,
who is a PhD candidate in Latin American history at
u v A. Nicholas, Welcome to the show. Thank you
so much for having me. It's a pleasure to be here. Yeah,
I'm excited. I'm excited to have you. And today we're
gonna be talking about something that we've we've mentioned before
on a few other episodes that that we've done about

(32:45):
Chile and about the all end a period. But I
think like, well, we definitely have not given enough attention
and I think gets less attention in the sort of
mainstream like left analysis of what happened to Allende and
what was going on in that period, which is the
cordonas and Nick has written about this a lot and

(33:06):
is also writing more about this and is doing research. Actually,
do do you do you care? Do you mind if
I mentioned that you're in chi leading research right now? No, totally. Um,
you know that's where I am. I'm here two years
after the pandemic took me away. I found being able
to come back and resume my research. Yeah. And so, Nicholas,
I think in your work. The thing that I think

(33:26):
is is different about it than a lot of the
the stuff that you'll read about I end in about
the Cordonats is the sort of historicization of it. And
so I won I was wondering if if we can
start back, I guess in the sixties and talk a
bit about the sort of political situation that gets you

(33:47):
to this sort of revolutionary moment. Yeah, that's great. I mean,
I think that it's important that we start at an
earlier moment to really understand how the Cordonas emerge as
a speci cific um culture, a specific urban space across
the city of Santiago. Uh. You know, the English translation
of the Cordons industrialist would essentially just be industrial belts.

(34:11):
So you can think of these as sort of sectors
of the city where the majority of sort of heavy
industry had been based UM, and then these specters themselves
were sort of roomnants of the nineteenth century UH, specifically
the railroad lines that would UH sort of the main
thoroughfares into the city of Santiago from the countryside. UM.

(34:31):
You know, over the course of the early twentieth century,
as you have the development of industry in in Chile
and in Santiago specifically, these are the same areas then
where these factories are are being developed because you have
pre existing sort of transportation networks that they're able to
take advantage of. UM. The problem is is that you know,
industrialization happens sort of in fits and starts in the

(34:53):
history of Chile UH. And the other sort of problem
is the problem of transportation itself. So, for example, in
the nineteen thirties, there's an urban plan that gets developed
for Santiago Centro or the central part of Santiago, and
they bring in an Austrian urban planner, Carl Bruner, to
help with this UH. And while Carl Bruner essentially tries

(35:17):
to do for Santiago UM what Hausman did for France, right,
widen boulevards make the city more accessible to new forms
of transportation, right, ideally the car buses, things of that nature.
The problem is is that he limited his work and
his studies, as I said, just to the center of

(35:38):
Santiago itself. Uh. The other problem is that once Brunner
leaves Santiago, the plan that's actually put into effect um
isn't necessarily all of his plan. It was sort of
a patchwork that legislators um sort of pick and choose
from when they put this plan into effect. And so
in between the thirties and the nineteen sixties, you know,

(35:59):
a lot has had Uh. Primarily you have the sort
of twin processes of industrialization, sort of rapid industrialization that's
taking place, which you also have this other process, which
is rural migration, sort of internal migration. And this isn't
a process that's limited to just Chile, right, this is
a region wide process that's happening all across Latin America.

(36:20):
And you're having sort of two factors that play in
this viggration. Right. You're having the push factor from the countryside, right,
the lack of opportunity, lack of jobs, lack of secure
employments um from the countryside. And then you're also having
the poll factor, which is you know, these industries that
are springing up in the city, as well as the

(36:41):
sort of infrastructure that a city would afford relative to
the countryside. UH. And these two processes sort of come
to a head in the nineteen fifties UM in Chile,
and by the end of the nineteen fifties UH, it's
clear to a growing set of people UM, including jan Paiochia,
who is an architect, UM, that something needs to be done.

(37:02):
There needs to be a new urban plan for the
city of Santiago UH. And this urban plan what they
try to do is it's the first time that there's
a sort of intercommunal which communal in this sense would
be a rough translation to municipality UM in English. So
it's really the first sort of inter municipal urban plan
that tries to link networks together. And this is actually

(37:25):
the first time that this word corbone industrial appears in
like an official government document. Right. That's the first time UM,
that urban planners themselves are thinking about zones of the
city that are going to be specifically for industry. And
so the idea is that they want to move a
lot of the industry that has sprung up in those

(37:47):
intervening years from the early twentieth century that was located
more in the center of the city. They want to
move it out of the center of the city, you know,
largely for things of pollution, safety, all of the things
that go along with heavy indust street. They want it
further on the periphery. Uh. And so that's part of
this urban plan that essentially tries to zone basically zone

(38:09):
um these uh, these sectors. And so that's really where
my disportation starts. That's where my research really sort of starts.
The stories and um, the late nineteen fifties, early nineteen sixties,
when these urban plans are taking effect. And so what
I'm interested in then is, you know, how did the
creation of these specific sectors of the city as industrial zones,

(38:31):
how did they then give rise to an urban culture
that will then manifest itself in a very revolutionary moment
once end comes to power. Yeah, And I think that
that's an interesting way to look at it because I think,
you know, because the process of sort of industry moving
from the center of the urban core outwards is something

(38:53):
that happens it really across the world, but mostly after
that period, and that that was one of the one
of the things that struck me about it. That's interesting.
I want to ask you about which is so to
what extent is this Is this a different process than
the kind of like, you know, the kind of suburbanization
that you see of of industry in the US, for example,

(39:14):
in like the nineteen eighties, or is it closer to well,
you know, I've talked I've talked about this, I guess
on the show in the Chinese context to where you
have i mean mostly pollution stuff has seen like some
industry sort of like I mean just literally getting pushed
into into rural areas. Is it is it like is
it like those same kind of impulses or is there

(39:35):
a different kind of um like relation, I mean, like
how far out of the city, Like is this stuff
like getting pushed to That's a great question, It's a
wonderful question. Um. And you know it is actually important.
This is important to remember that at this time the
city of Santiago, um, you know, just outside the city
of Santiago is is still largely rural. Right where where

(39:57):
the first cordon will emerge on the southwestern side of
the city is still a largely rural part of the
city itself. Uh. And so it is very similar to
the dynamics that you're describing, and that it is pushing
you know, away from where people are living, right, two
more rural places where there is more land both to build, right,

(40:18):
So there is the availability of space, but there's also
less people living in that space. So from the planner's perspective,
it's considered better because the sort of you know, chemical
and heavy metal runoffs from a lot of the metal
working factories, all of these things and the pollution from smokestacks, etcetera, um,
you know, are less harmful. The problem then becomes, however, Um,

(40:42):
the as I mentioned the rural migration and people that
are migrating to the city. You know, there's not space
in the center of the city for these people to live, right,
so they're moving into the same areas. So in some senses,
the sort of historical dynamics of the region are undercut
the sort of success of the planners when it comes

(41:02):
to making these zones away from the city itself. Um.
And I guess I guess that that would be something
also that that's interesting about this, which is that I
think because like you know, the sort of like decentralization
of industry and that the push into rural areas, I
think largely did not produce a kind of like radical
working class culture. But but but it seems like you

(41:23):
have this kind of veiling factor here, which is that
you have a bunch of people who are like who
are who are coming into industrial work for the first
time out of the countryside, which tends to be a
very radical faction. Like is that one of the things
that gives you this sort of radical culture instead of
the kind of like total disintecreation of the class that
you see in the sort of later versions of this.

(41:46):
This is such a beautiful question, and this this question
really lays the heart of my research. So if we
scope out just for a bit and think about this
historiographically in Chile, there is a vein of historiography that
is very concerned with these rural migrants, which once they
arrive in the city are referred to as pobladores right
which we can roughly translate this sort of urban poor,

(42:08):
right um. And they're considered a sort of capital s
social subject that is distinct from a worker or from
a working class um, from a sociological point of view,
right um. And the reason this is because a lot
of them. Um. While they are workers, you know, they
are part of the working class. Functionally, they're sort of

(42:31):
social concern and the social movement that is bound up
or known as the sort of peblad or movement, is
a movement for housing right. Because they are arriving at
these sort of vacant parts of the city. Um, the
they bring with them the sort of as you mentioned,
their own histories of struggle from the countryside, of which
the sort of main tactic is the toma or seizure right.

(42:55):
And so what they will do when they arrive in
these places of land is that they will seize these
lots and they will erect a structure on it. In
doing so, then they would use that to stake a
claim to as a claim of property rights right, as
a claim for their own proper home and everything that
would go with it within um, within a city, infrastructure right, utilities, sewage, etcetera. Um,

(43:20):
that's what they would leverage them as a claim for that.
And so my project is essentially trying to break down
this analytic barrier that has separated the popelador from the
worker in the historiography, specifically in the historiography of things
like the Cortonas and the popular Unity years during all
end because as I mentioned, many of these people once

(43:41):
they're moving to the cities and you know, moving into
what would be referred to as either complimentos or potionists. Uh,
you know, they're looking for work, and they're finding work
at a lot of these factories that are nearby where
they're moving. Now. In doing so, however, they're coming into
contact they're sort of mixing. Wi if the older generation

(44:02):
of migrants that migrated from the north of Chile, right
from the mining sector in the north of Chile following
the Great Depression, which is the sort of historical birth
of the labor movement in Chile, the nitrates sector um
in the far north of cher Chile, which, following the
development of sort of synthetic forms of explosives, nitrates are

(44:23):
not saltpeter specifically, is not as high in demand anymore
since you have a lot of people migrating to the
city to begin working in the industries there, right. So
those sort of older working class who also have their
own sort of history of struggle, history of tactics, etcetera,
and this newer form of worker there right are mixing

(44:45):
and they're sort of mixing in these areas in specific
and that, uh, to me, is why it's so important
to think about the Cordons is more than just an
organization that emerges in the early nineteen seventies and really
think about him a a space, as a geographic space
that developed their own unique forms of local culture informed

(45:07):
by these larger, more macro historical processes. Yeah. That that
that that seems like a much more I don't know
if I don't know if productive is the right word,
though it is, but I think, yeah, I think that
is a better way of thinking about it than what
you usually see, because yeah, that that kind of the

(45:29):
fact that, Yeah, the fact that you have multiple different
essentially like you have you have multiple difference is like
sociological classes mixing. You have, you have their tactics sort
of fusing, and that developing its own culture. That's that's distinct,
I think from a lot of the you know, because
this this this is a business a period of time

(45:50):
like the late nineteen sixies, early seventies is like the
golden age of the factory occupation. And I think, you know,
I think you can draw similarities between that in between
the don'tice, but I think, I don't know. I mean,
it'll is a version of this that that that I
know the best, and that one, I guess sort of
also has a simpilar gynamic of you get you get

(46:10):
a bunch of that, you have this mixing of of
sort of the old urban working class, but that you
have a bunch of um you have this huge labor
migration from from the south, from the rural areas, that
that mixes in there. And I'm wondering, I guess, like
when when you talk about sort of the culture of this,
how how much of that is something that you think

(46:31):
is like a distinct product of like this exact configuration
of of so social class is hitting each other, and
to what extent it's kind of like a process that
we've that you find in other places where you have
you have these sort of market worker like first generation

(46:52):
market worker basis hitting these sort of older industrial working classes. Yeah. No,
I think that your spot on, right. I think that
this is um a larger global history. Right, this is
a moment in which you are having a lot of
migration from countryside into the city worldwide. Right, you have
a lot of French intellectuals at this moment thinking about

(47:12):
sort of what does it mean that the city is
perhaps becoming the new focus, the sort of new locusts
of social movements and social actions. You know, what does
it mean that the city is dominant over the countryside? Um?
And things like that. But I think it is different,
or not necessarily different, but perhaps unique in the Chilean case, um,

(47:33):
is that this is a you know, you have a
culture in Chile that is known world over for its
political culture. Right, everyone at this moment was thinking and
talking politically, uh, and talking about big you know, grand
ideas of politics, not just you know, sort of everyday politics,

(47:54):
but how did everyday politics inform these larger sort of
social struggles. Right. This is still a moment when socialism
is on the table, right, Um. And so you have
you know, not that this is different than other places
in the world. Clearly, as you mentioned, in Italy, socialism
is very much still on the table. Communism is very
much still on the table there as well, um. But

(48:15):
in Chile, what is different is that there is this
idea that one could perhaps legislate socialism, right, or that
one could use the means of democracy to achieve socialism. Right.
That's what's going to make the Illende government so unique
in this moment um. But what also makes the courtons
unique is this sort of relationship between social space and

(48:38):
physical space in the city. So, for example, the very
first court zone that emerges in nineteen two Studios Mai
Poo as I mentioned earlier on the southwest of the city,
that one, as I mentioned, because it had such close
contact with the rural sector on that edge, had a
lot more solidarity between rural laborers and factory laborers, such

(49:00):
that by nineteen seventy three you have factory labors going
out of their factory and helping world labors sees their
properties and hold their properties um away from the landowners
essentially right and claiming sort of a redistributive um you
know land for those who work at type of strategy.
This is say, different from the cordon that my dissertation

(49:24):
is focused on Facuna Mcana, which, as as I mentioned,
a much larger segment of popolodors living nearby it, right uh.
And so you have a much larger solidarity between the
popolodors and between factory workers. And what makes that even
more unique in this case is the role of the
Catholic Church, and this is really one of the sort
of new things that my dissertation is trying to do

(49:47):
is what is the role of the Catholic Church here. So,
for example, of the Catholic Church historically within the and
within the historiography as well, UM has always been associated
with the popelodoor movement, right because of this sort of
connection to the countryside, because of the churches sort of
you know, missionary kind of work and going out into

(50:09):
the population, you know, poorer populations, especially following Vatican to
UM that in which they begin to sort of have
more outreach into the poor sectors. UM. But it's never
really seen or rather very few scholars have thought about
or looked at what does this mean then for those
individuals who may have lived in a position but who

(50:32):
worked in a factory. In other words, what was the
relationship between the sort of social pastoral message of the
church and the sort of socialism of a factory worker. Uh.
And in the case of the Aquamacina, there's actually very
strong links here. So specifically, the San Kayatano parish, which
is located just to the west of the Corvillone proper Um,

(50:54):
was was fundamental in helping some of the workers established
unions h and in the cordon. So, for example, the
Sumar Textile factory, which was functionally a city unto itself.
This this textile company had a series of different factories
within its property, so it had a cotton plant, had

(51:14):
a nylon plant, a silk plant that had a polyester plant,
and each of these different plants than each had their
own um unions. And in Chile, in the labor code
in Chile from the nineteen thirties, there were two different
types of unions per factory or per plant. You had
the industrial union, which we could think of as the

(51:34):
blue collar worker union, and then you had in platos union,
which we can think of as a more white collar union.
These would be the sort of professionals in the factory,
the sort of technicians, uh, the engineers, right, not so
much the manual labors, but everyone else in the factory
and in the case of sum A specifically the cotton
plant itself. Um in the late nineteen sixties, when they're

(51:57):
trying to found their union for the first time, they
don't have anywhere to go to find it, to to
found it, right, because they can't do it in the
factory itself, because management, the bosses will crack down on it.
They don't have their own local yet because they haven't
founded a union, and so what they ultimately do is
they reach out to the parish priest in San Kayatano,

(52:18):
who is you know, who offers them help and in
doing so offers them a space to hold their first
union vote. Uh. And that's actually how the Union of
Sumar gets founded. Sumar will go on to play a
major role both in the cordonus and then after the
Cordonus during the dictatorship. It's a it's a very um,
very important factory uh in this history. Um. But it's

(52:40):
often overlooked that, you know, the church played a very
fundamental role in the sort of larger history of the
working class formation of the Sumar workers. I mean, it
brings us to one of the things about this period
that's I guess becoming to be better understood. But I
think if you're a person who has not spent time
looking at this might look kind of weird, which is that, Yeah,

(53:03):
it's just that the Catholic Church in this period in
a in a lot of Latin America like takes especially
Adican Tubia like it. It takes this like very hard
left turn that yeah, I mean has all of these
causes that like you know, like you get like the
the Italian version of it, is like you get a
bunch of priests who are just like like like clergyman

(53:24):
literally doing kidnappings of like random government officials. And I think, yeah,
I guess in in in in this context, what what's
interesting to me, I guess is yeah, like how how much? Okay, So,

(53:44):
like what is the you're you're talking You're talking about
the sort of like the sort of pastoralism of this
the sort of like social gospel message. Is there is
there like a divide between the way the just working
in the city and the ways working in the countryside
or is it just sort of like it's all shifting

(54:06):
left but they're more the influence of the church is
larger in among sort of royal and natural people. That's
actually really good question. And this is actually where I'm
in the midst of sort of trying to figure this out. Specifically, UM.
For the past three weeks, I've actually been working in
the church archives here in Santiago, UM and so that's
actually the documents that I'm sort of sifting through as

(54:29):
as we speak. UM. And so one thing I can
say for certain as of now, what I've been able
to sort of uncover is that, you know, the Church
was not homogeneous, and it certainly wasn't monolithic, not in
Latin America and definitely not in Santiago. Uh, you know,
in the region itself. Following Vatican to you have the
Episcopal Conference of Latin America's second conference that takes place

(54:52):
in the nineteen sixties in Medallian and that's where the
sort of the idea of liberation theology is born. Right
falling Median then in Chile, the the Episcopal Conference of
Chile then is basically tasked with determining a way to
fit its own pastoralism, its own sort of pastoral plan

(55:13):
within these new structures that they are a party too,
because they are part of this larger conference in Latin
America itself. And so, you know, one thing that I
have uncovered in the documents is that this is very
much you begin to see a divide amongst the bishops,
amongst the church hierarchy here that um are very you know,

(55:36):
interested in following this new plan of action, but they're
also wary of some of the discourse that is surrounding this.
So one example that comes to mind here is the
idea of liberation itself. Right, we often talk about liberation theology,
and we often talk about it is that it was
just sort of accepted wholesale by the church in Latin America. Well,

(55:57):
a lot of the documents that I'm encountering here are
there's a great debate over the use of liberations, specifically
because the idea of liberation is so tied up with Marxism, right,
and that is, you know, at this time, the Catholic
Church as a global institution and Marxism as a global
ideology are scene its antithetical. And here the idea that

(56:22):
in the Church's view, at least from these documents, the
idea of Marxism that it's talking about when it's using
Marxism is very much the Soviet Union, Right, It's very
much the sort of atheistic approach to the church to
religion that comes out of the early form of Marxism
Leninism from early twentieth century. And so there's a great

(56:42):
debate on whether or not to use liberation. And ultimately,
you know, those supporting this discourse went out um and
and it is decided that liberation will be the words
and the sort of discourse that the parish priests UM
will use. But the other big thing that comes out
of this in addition to this sort of discourse of liberation,

(57:03):
is this new idea of UM Catholic based communities. Right,
is this whole new framework for UM sort of understanding
a Christian community. Right. Prior to this innovation of the
base community, you know, a Christian community was defined by
the hierarchy of the church. Right, you have the sort

(57:23):
of congregation, you have your parishes, you have the different
UM sort of structural and bureaucratic UH designations that sort
of link from a parish upward UM to the sort
of church hierarchy itself. But the based community essentially is
saying that, you know, wherever a few people gather and

(57:44):
are studying the Word of God or reading scripture or
having theological debates, that that should be considered, you know,
part of the church UM should be considered that part
of the church. And so in that sense we can
look at sasan Kayatano parish and the work that it's
doing with workers and a sum Our factory and sort
of this has me thinking about, you know, what does

(58:05):
it mean you know, what do these based communities look
like in practice? Is it possible for us to conceive
of workers who are reaching out to their local priest
for assistance as perhaps their own Christian based community or furthermore,
you know, at this time in Chile, in addition to
the leftist political parties the socialist and the communist, which

(58:27):
is you know, a majority of workers, the Christian Democrats
are also a large force. Right in nineteen sixty four,
President at What Pray is elected as a Christian Democrat
and he's the sort of what will initiate a process
that will culminate with Allende's election in nineteen seventy UM,
and by that I mean he initiates what he refers

(58:50):
as to a revolution in liberty UM, which is sort
of a communitarian reformism that is essentially seen as perhaps
forestalling Marxist revolution, Socialist revolution from taking place, but it's
incredibly popular amongst working class and workers UM. And the
Christian Democrat party itself was a very wide ranging party

(59:11):
that encompassed right wing elements but also left wing elements.
Can we can we talk a bit a bit more
about like what the Christian Christian Democrats are because this
is a thing that like doesn't really exist anymore, but
was I think like a very important player. Like I mean,
there's there's there's very powerful topocratic parties and you're upre's
very powerful Chusian depocratic parties like across Latin America. Yeah,

(59:34):
can we can we talk a bit about like what
that is and how that's different from like, you know,
how it's different from just like your your generic your
generic sort of socialist party, and how it's different even
from your sort of like I don't know, you're like
labor party social democrats. Yeah, no, I mean this is
this is a great question, and you're right, this isn't
something that is sort of exists in the present moment.

(59:55):
So it does seem very foreign to us. Um. But
really with the sort of way or that the Christian
Democrats make is that you know, in theory, they agree
for the need for structural change, right in theory, the
alleviation of poverty, a more a more just distribution of wealth, right,

(01:00:16):
But their ideas of justice and things, and this is
where the Christianity part of the Christian Democrat comes in, right,
is that it is justice as understood in a Christian
sense of justice, right, not in a sort of more
radical egalitarian sense of justice. That's stay a socialist or
a communist would believe in, you know. So, for a

(01:00:36):
socialist or a communist, the sort of motor of history
is class struggle. Right. For a Christian democrat, the motor
of history is God and his son Jesus Christ. Right,
And that is the sort of would be I guess
you could think of as the main difference. And then
how that plays out in practical terms would be in
a for a communist, for a socialist, right, you want

(01:00:58):
a sort of radical communist some dictatorship of the proletariat.
These types of forms are very stagist movement through history.
For a Christian democrat, however, it's much more of a
communitarian ethic. Right, It's much more of a harmonization between say,
the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, rather than an overthrowing and

(01:01:19):
an eradication of the bourgeoisie by the proletariat, as it
would be for say a socialist or a communist. Yeah,
and I guess that that's something I want to like.
I want to move a bit talking about all end
a briefly, because I think that's an interesting one of
the things you're talking about earlier is ill End talking
about Okay, well we can have a democratic path of socialism.

(01:01:40):
And what's what's very interesting to me about both Allende
and what's happening in the Cordonas is that like, okay,
so like that that that is a that idea has
been around for a very long time, and like there
are a lot of people who take power who are like, okay,
we're taking an amocratic path of socialism. And then you know,
like what a lot of whim are Like Germany right

(01:02:01):
is ruled by by the German Social Democratic Party, and
it's like, well you look at what they do and
they're not really like socialist NG they're most I mean,
you know, they're they're they're they're doing they're doing things
like they're doing things like welfare reform. But that's a
very different thing. Well, and you know, and you can
see like the Labor Party in in in the UK,
for example, well like okay, well the nationalized industries, right,

(01:02:23):
but you you don't see the kind of movements against
like the the you don't see the kind of movement
against property and that the movement against sort of like
like you don't see an actual attempt to like eliminate
which was he as a class in the same way
that you do about Chile. And so I was wondering, like,
what what makes like, what was it about this moment

(01:02:46):
that someone who claim that actually comes into power and
starts doing it, and starts doing in a way that's
not just the sort of like you know when most
of the time when someone nationalizes something, right, it's okay.
So instead of instead of having a boss, that is,

(01:03:09):
instead of having a boss whose job it is to
like make money for the stock market, you have a
boss who works for the state, and there there there's
there's there's very little sort of like structural change in
how and how the bureaucracy has run. There's no change.
And like your your individual relation to your boss does
not change. He's still your boss, and that isn't what

(01:03:31):
happens in Chile, in in in the in the same way. Yeah,
I'm interested, why why why? Why this looks different here?
I guess Yeah, No, I think this is a great question,
you know. And and so to to get to end
a it is imperative that we start with Fray in
nineteen sixty four, and in some senses we can start

(01:03:52):
even in ninety seven, which was End's first attempt at
running for president. At this time i End is running
UM as essentially the last gasp, you could say, of
the Popular Front which emerged in the nineteen thirties and
into the nineteen forties and had successfully united a large
swath of the political parties in Chile. And this is

(01:04:14):
what led to that earlier moment of industrialization, largely through
the sort of policy known as imports substitution industrialization, when
which you know, the national industries would be built, they
would be protected via tariffs, price controls, and others that
would stimulate local growth to produce products that would have
otherwise been imported. However, by the late nineteen fifties, things

(01:04:38):
have begun to bottleneck right, largely in the Chilean case,
because a lot of the countryside is still under control
of the Latin Fundo of Grand Estate, right, and which
means that productivity isn't necessarily where it should be UM.
But it also means that the labor force that's sort
of stuck on the land as well isn't available then
for the development of capital as in industry right, and

(01:05:01):
the capital goods are what you need to really jump
start industry whole sale. What Chila does really well is
that sort of in a mediary phase of making goods
for individual consumption, right, things of things of that nature. Uh.
And so what End does in seven is essentially trying
to first run on a platform of industrialization and to

(01:05:26):
fix inflation, right Uh. And he narrowly loses. He just
barely loses the election. In nineteen fifty seven, Hill who
wins is Alessandri wins. Uh. And he will essentially adopt
a very classical liberal approach, free market reforms, repression of
labor in some senses, freezing of any sort of gains

(01:05:47):
of the labor movement, et cetera. This ultimately does not work. Right.
And so in nineteen sixty four, you know, Shaker, you
have calls then for a more revolutionary approach. Well. Also,
what's happening in en sixty or right as we're now
in the wake of the Cuban Revolution which has taken place,
which has put the America's as a hemispheric designation unnoticed

(01:06:11):
that now it is possible to have uh, sort of
a revolution via insurrection via guerilla warfare be successful, right,
and not only be successful, but be successful in defeating
the hedgemon of the hemisphere, the United States. And so
what the United States will then do is launched the
Alliance through Progress, which is essentially a way of funneling

(01:06:33):
money into reformist minded governments as a way to appease
these calls for revolution m but prevent a sort of
Marxist revolution from taking place. So in the case of Chile,
the Alliance through Progress will funnel many, many amounts of
dollars into the Fray administration. UM and Frey wins the

(01:06:56):
election handily. Now there's a great debate to be had
on whether or not the UH or whether the involvement
of the c i A and a sort of scare
tactic and fearmongering campaign went on in the nineteen sixty
four campaign. Unfortunately, we just don't have the documents yet
UM for this period, like we do for the nineteen seventies,
then the lead up to the coup in the nineteen seventies. UM.

(01:07:16):
You know, hopefully one day we'll have a better sense
of really what went on that explains such a lopsided
defeat of Agenda in nineteen sixty four. UM, So Frey
will come to power in nineteen sixty four, and actually
the agrarian reform in Chile will begin under the Christian
Democrats under phrase administration financed in large part by the

(01:07:37):
Alliance Progress UM. Also the nationalization of copper, which will
be fully nationalized under all End in the nineteen seventies,
but it actually exists in a state of so called
negotiated nationalization under Frey, or what Frey would refer to
as the Chileanization of copper, in which Chile would take
a very small right fifty one, you know, percent controlling

(01:08:01):
in the copper companies UM, but would still have large
the American copper companies Anaconda and Kennicott specifically, would still
be the ones responsible for running the operations themselves. That's
that's an interesting I I guess weird historical thing because
I know, okay, so like this, there have been a

(01:08:22):
lot of times where the CIA has supported lander form,
which is very weird, like that they do it in
Japan for example, and you know it's seen as seen
as one of these things. It's like, okay, well we
have to do lander form in order to like stop
and stop an actual revolution for happening. So we'll do
a sort of capitalist version of it. It's interesting to
me that Chile does it because I feel like that
that's not something that happens in most of the other

(01:08:44):
Latin American states with the CIA gets involved. Um yeah,
well it's also I mean, the Alliance for Progress is
official government policy. Um. You know, it will be the
one that starts the alliance and then it will continue
into the LBJ administration following Kennedy's assassination. Um. And so
that is um. And you're right that regionally, the Appliance

(01:09:04):
for Progress is largely a failure. There are, however, a
few successes, and Chile was at the time held up
as one of the successes and has somewhat been born
out as one of the successes insofar as it is
what initiates Thegarian reform in Chile. So so I guess
so okay, So what you're saying is that there are

(01:09:28):
there there's there's there's a specific group of parties at
the US backs at this period who are trying to
do this sort of who are trying to do some
kind of reform, um like, who are trying to do
this sort of like the class collaboration reform to save
off revolution thing. And then I guess the like later
policy becomes just do the do kind of insurgency on

(01:09:49):
behalf of the landowners. Yeah, I mean the way the
phrase you know, as the phrase administration continues, it becomes
clear that his sort of reformist approaches is simply not working. Um.
One is just not working on a macro economic level. Right.
Inflation is still happening, which has sort of been the
you know, enemy number one of the Chilean economy for

(01:10:12):
most of the twentieth century. Right, most of the twentieth
century in Chile is presidential administrations and economic economists, economic
advisors are all struggling to understand how to control inflation. Um.
And you know, Frey thinks that they can figure it
out via these sort of reforms, via the gray in reform.
Be it the sort of chileanization of the great minding

(01:10:35):
wealth of the country. Uh, in terms of factory or
industry level. They essentially proposed this idea of sort of
workers enterprises that is somewhat modeled off the Yugoslavian model,
which is a much more communitarian um approach. Right, as
you were saying earlier, you know, the boss is still there.
Workers do have a stake in control of the enterprise. UM,

(01:10:58):
but private properties still exists, so I guess still the
boss like with that, Like how to what extent is it?
Like if you have this on a scale of like
on the one hand, on like the the extreme end
you have there's like nothing or maybe workers can own
a share of a company. And on the other end
is like I don't know, like like in nineteen thirties,

(01:11:18):
like like seven like anarchist commune in Spain, Like how
how how much control do they actually like I don't know,
like is this closer to something like the sort of
like German code code determination system, Like how close to
like Yugoslavia? Is this? Sorry, I'm trying to get a
sense of like yeah, this is a lot of this. No,
this is fascinating. In fact, one of my sort of

(01:11:39):
dream projects or sort of dream archives to get into
an ultimately be the Yugoslavian archives or former Yugoslavian archives,
because there is a lot of collaboration picking place between
the Yugoslavian Left and Chileans at this time. UM. The
problem is that a lot of this never really gets
off the ground in practice. It is a lot of

(01:11:59):
sort of things that exist on paper, reforms that are proposed,
but reforms that never really get implemented, which then has
the effect of heightening expectations but not delivering on the goods,
which pushes people further to the left right and pushes
them to demand a more radical solution, which they find
in the nineteen seventy campaign of Salva end Right. And

(01:12:21):
this is what really gets us to the to Ayends victory,
which is the sort of failures of the Free administration
to achieve the sort of revolution in liberty that he promises. Also,
the near the end of the Free administration, there's a
massacre that takes place in the south of Chile in
part the month UM that really UM solidifies or if

(01:12:46):
you will, sort of the final push um or loss
of legitimacy for the Fray administration, as well as a
pushing the sort of more popular classes to um be
opposed to the Frame administration via hosts the sort of
the Christian democratic message of reformantism and decides to sort
of give revolution a chance. Uh. And it's into that

(01:13:09):
moment that Salvador Allende reforms UM. The coalition that you know,
the original coalition that he runs on was was referred
to as the frapp Um. He forms a sort of
new coalition in the lead up to the nineteen seventy election,
which would be the Popular Unity Coalition UH. And it's
a coalition of leftist parties, primarily the Socialists of which

(01:13:31):
I end is a member, and the Communists. And here
it's important to remember in the Chilean case that the
Socialists are actually to the left of the communists. Um.
The Communists are a much more um reserved approach to revolution,
and by which I mean they're very much um going

(01:13:52):
to sort of have the you know, they're they're holding
the party line right there behold into the common tern right.
But they are also very much in line with the
I in days, with the day's view of legislating socialism.
That's I guess. Another interesting aspect of this is, like
that's something I think also doesn't get discussed very much,
which is this period where like a lot of the

(01:14:13):
like that that was the party discipline being opposed from
Moscow for like a lot of this period like is
explicitly telling them not to like explicitly saying don't do
a revolution, like hold and stabilize the situation. Um. Is
that the case like so I because I I okay,
this is this is again going back to me knowing Italy,

(01:14:33):
but I know Chile. That is that something like how
how long has that been policy? Frow is? Is Is that
like an old is that old popular front like stuff
from them? Or is this is has it like because
I know like like the U S policity Like so
it's just like the Moscow line flips back and forth
somewhat randomly depending on like what it's going, don't flips

(01:14:56):
a lot, especially in that that nine three period. And
and you know, once they established the idea of the
Popular Front, that sort of does become the line. The
big change takes place in UM. There is a meeting
of the Common Turn in nineteen fifty seven, and that's
when the idea of individual national roads to socialism becomes

(01:15:16):
the official party line of the Common Tern And that
is what then authorizes communist parties across the world to
seek their own routes to socialism. Right, so it no
longer has to be a Leninist insurrectional model, It no
longer has to be a Cuban revolutionary model. UM. It
can be its own. So that when allend A proposes

(01:15:37):
this pluralist way of reaching socialism. That's what the communists
will link to UM and and really that's what they'll
hitch their wagon too, and will will tow that line
throughout the three years, throughout the thousand days of the
Allenda government, which will then ultimately put them into conflict
with the left wing of the Socialist Party, which is

(01:16:00):
pushing for a much more radical um a radical ship.
And that's really the sort of context that the cordonate
is emerge out of in nineteen seventy two, is the
sort of growing factionalism, growing secretary sectarianism within the ruling
coalition of the Popular Unity. Yeah, and I guess this

(01:16:20):
this is already going a lot of some of the
way to explaining why this looks different than a lot
of the other sort of like a lot of the
other sort of socialist coalition governments you see around the world.
I mean, I mean, yeah, I mean partially just yeah,
the influence of Yugoslavia is fascinating to me, because I
mean that explained, That explains so much, right, Like that,

(01:16:42):
that explains why there's a sort of democratic component to it,
even in even in the sort of reformist periods and
it explains why the expectation is that and not the
sort of like even not even like like Soviet style
nationalization absolutely does not look like that. Yeah, so you're
you're right that you know, these these multifaceted, multi layer
influences globally as well as locally within Chile as well

(01:17:04):
as regionally, UM produce something that is the first time
that UM so, for example, in victory, is the first
time that an openly Marxist candidate will be elected president
of a nation, elected democratically in a free and fair
election that is not contested UM or anything like that.

(01:17:28):
Now that said, he wins by plurality, he only wins
by about in the thirty percent range UM. Now, historically
in Chile, a plurality victory is not a problem because
you demanded to the Congress, and the Congress typically will
just rubber stamp the victory I end. However, you know,
there's a lot of apprehension about what he means for

(01:17:51):
the country, what he means for the sort of landed deletes,
what he means for the sort of oligarchs that control
the grand monopolies and she they uh, and so there
is a lot of tension. Well, this is also then
where the actions the CIA backfire. UM. So the work
of the National Security Archive has done great work for

(01:18:12):
uncovering the sort of two track plan that Nixon and
Kissinger have for subverting the election of Allende and then
ultimately preventing him from assuming power. And part of those
tracks was to sort of foment some sort of crisis. UH.
And so the crisis that they attempt to foment involves
General Renee Schneider, and it is the attempt is that

(01:18:36):
they're going to kidnap him and hold him hostage UM
and use that as a way to prevent Allende from
coming to power. Well, the problem is that goes horribly wrong.
The people that are carrying out to kidnapping are clearly
unprepared for what happens. UM. Things can go haywire and
Schneider is assassinated, He's shot UM accidentally and layer it

(01:18:59):
dies UH. And the problem then becomes, you know, the
nation is horrified, The Chilean nation is horrified at this
UM took place. And as a result, then UM ranks
are closed around by Ende and it has decided that
they will approve his UM candidacy, his election and that
he will be affirmed as the president. Um. And you know,

(01:19:21):
also what's happening in the background during the election and
during the lead up to that vote is that the
Popular Unity coalition has its program. You know, what we
would think of as a campaign um sort of platform um.
But part of the platform in the Populunities case was
what they referred to as the sort of basic agreement
between the coalition and the both the people of Chile

(01:19:43):
but also the political system, which in this basic agreement
is sort of what we've been discussing this whole time,
which is that end would not change fundamentally the political system. Right,
any sort of nationalizations, any sort of economic restructuring that
they would at she for that they would try to
achieve in Chile would be taken, would take place, would

(01:20:06):
be used or one through the halls of concress. Right,
everything would be legislated. Everything would still be from main um,
the sort of Chilean government as normal. Right. This is
where you get ends famous phrase that the revolution is
going to be with infant us and be tinto right
with meat pies and red wine, um, which means, you know,

(01:20:27):
it's essentially not going to be a revolution of deprivation right,
it's not going to be a revolution that fundamentally changes
the structures of everyday life in Chile. This has when
they could happen here. Join us tomorrow for part two
of this interview, where we walk through the Chilean Revolution,
the Cordons, and their lasting impact in society. If you

(01:20:50):
want to find more of Nicholas's work, he has an
article coming out in the next week or so and
then made by History section of the Washington Post connecting
the revolutionary period and the broader struggle for a dignity
find Life to the modern inclusion of social rights in
the proposed new post uprising Leighan Constitution. You can find
more of us that happened here, pond on Twitter, Instagram,
And we have two new podcasts coming out. The first

(01:21:12):
is Ghost Church, hosted by the inimitable Jamie Loftus. It's
a it's a deep look at the historical contemporary practice
of spiritualism and mediums who talked to ghosts. It is wonderful.
Jamie is one of the best podcasters ever do it
and the first episode is out right now. You can
find Ghost Church wherever find podcasts are distributed. Second on
May Day, which is which is this Sunday, May one,

(01:21:32):
the first episode of the Great Margaret Killjoy's new podcast
Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff is dropping. It's about
well what the title says, that's the coolest revolutionaries, desperadoes
and ordinary people in the right place and the right
time doing extremely cool stuff. And it's happening every Monday
and Wednesday from here on out. So go give it.
Listen when the traps on May Day. It is going
to be great, and yeah, it is, it is. It

(01:21:53):
is a great time to be podcasting. There are there
are many podcasts, so go listen to them now after
you're done with this one. Welcome to it Happen here

(01:22:18):
a show that is once again today about the Chilean Revolution. Um,
here's part two of my interview with Nicholas Scott. Yeah,
I guess, I guess the next thing you should look
at is like how how Yeah, it's exactly you know.
The Essentially, by the end of Allende's first year, things

(01:22:38):
are looking very promising. So a few victories, more than
a few victories, but a few key victories take place
in his first year in office. In one he submits
his plan for the nationalization of the nation's mineral wealth,
which is voted unanimously in Congress, which speaks to the
level of broad support for Chile having its own national

(01:23:03):
sovereignty over its own resources. Right. And this also then
connects with sort of the theme that we've been developing
this whole time, which is the sort of trends in
regional and global similarities between Chile and elsewhere. Right. A
lot of the Third World movement, a lot of countries
in the so called Third World at that time are
looking to nationalization as the way to extricate themselves from

(01:23:26):
what they viewed as being in a relationship of dependency
to circuits of global capitalism. Right. You have this whole
idea of dependency theory that comes out of Latin America
in specific UM. And the solution then is seen to
be able to control one's own natural resources uh and

(01:23:46):
and use that wealth to develop its own national industry. Right.
This would overcome the sort of bottlenext in the imports
institution model UM as well as allowing for more redistributive
UMM structure of wealth and or land within the individual
countries themselves. So he gets his mineral wealth UM nationalization past.

(01:24:08):
The Popular Unity Coalition also wins a series of off
fear or by elections at the local level, Um and
wins them so successfully that they will eschew a alliance
with the Christian Democrats, who are not part of the coalition,
the popular unew coalition, but they are also at this
time not part of the opposition, which is largely controlled

(01:24:31):
by the Nationalist Party. They're sort of somewhere in the middle,
but they're also in the point in the middle in
which they control a large share of the Congress as
well as the courts themselves, so they will not So
the Popularly Unique Coalition is sort of buoyed by that.
What it sees is the success at the ballot box,
and it sees its success is getting its plans passed,

(01:24:53):
and so they will issue an alliance with the Christian Democrats.
And then the sort of other main thing that takes
place in the ninety one is the ad is able
to affect using macroeconomic policies that were functionally Canesianism right,
Um in his economic Minister Pedro Guskovic Um will essentially
allow for a redistribution of wealth in which workers received

(01:25:17):
sort of um what they could what we can consider bonuses, right,
but sort of automatic increases um that we're affected from
the top down in wages across UH. And the historian
Peter Wynn who published the sort of landmark study UM
that really dominated the field of the history and the
historiography of the Popular Unity years. He published a book

(01:25:39):
called The Leaverse of Revolution that looks at the Yor
Textile Mill, which was the first mill that I in
a nationalizes UM in N And what when found during
his research is that, you know, IDAs policies in n
allowed a majority of Chileans to purchase bedsheets for the
first time in many of their lives. That sheets were

(01:26:02):
not something that the majority of Chileans used, despite the
fact that a majority of Chileans worked in the textile
industry right the textile industry was one of the most
developed industries in Chile at this moment. And so all
of these things sort of come together and by the
end of the nineteen seventy one signs are looking good. However,

(01:26:23):
by the time sort of nineteen seventy two dawns and
as we're getting into the nineteen seventy two cracks are
beginning to appear. There's another series of by elections in
which the Popular Unity Coalition does not win. The Christian
Democrats win UH. The election for the Rector of the
University of Chile is a shock defeat for the Popular

(01:26:43):
Unity Coalition and the Christian Democrat wins that UM. As well.
As in nineteen seventy two, there is for the first
time in the nation's history, the Central Workers Federation of Labor,
the COOT has for the first time its own UM
open elections for its leadership. It was the first time
the rank and file could elect the leadership of the

(01:27:05):
National Labor Confederation, and the Communist win the largest majority
and the Socialists come in second, but just below the Socialists,
and at the percentage level it was functionally the same
where the Christian Democrats, so much so that basically a
court that the Popular Unique Coalition sees that a quarter
of the working class of Chile identifies as a Christian Democrat. Meanwhile, economically,

(01:27:30):
things are beginning to stall out. Inflation is beginning to
creep back up. UM production is not necessarily at the
levels that UM the government would want it to be at. Right,
so the idea of winning the battle of production begins
becomes the sort of watchword or rallying cry in nineteen

(01:27:50):
seventy two. Uh, And if the successes of nineteen one
had somewhat papered over the sectarian differences that we were
discussing earlier between say, the minists and socialists, by nineteen
seventy two, those secretary differences are really spilling out into
public view. So in mid nineteen you have the Communist Party,

(01:28:13):
um member of the Communist Party is also a member
of the allen A government, or Orlando MEAs Pens and
editorial in which he essentially calls for the party, for
the coalition to sort of close ranks, to consolidate its games,
to reach out to the Christian Democrats, to make an
alliance and use that sort of consolidated alliance as the

(01:28:36):
way to move forward on in the revolutionary path. The Socialists, however,
specifically the left wing of the Socialist Party, which was
sort of identified with Carlo Carlos Ultimarano at the time,
takes the opposite approach and says that, no, the solution
isn't to consolidate to advance. Uh. The solution is to

(01:28:57):
advance and consolidate by advancing. In other words, we shouldn't
try to make an alliance with the Christian Democrats, because
in their view, the Christian Democrats were just bourgeois right,
that we should essentially align ourselves with the popular classes,
with the world laborers that are meeting charge of the
agrarian reform that's picking up speed rapidly in the countryside

(01:29:17):
at this time right see, land seizures are taking place
much more rapidly. Now, we should also place our alliances
with the popular working classes, which at that moment, at
the moment that this polemic is playing out in the
press of Chile, is the very same moment do you
have the first cordoon industrial emerged in citys Maipo uh.

(01:29:40):
And it's into that sort of fractured moment that you
have workers from a couple of plants that just happened
to meet serendipitous lee on the steps of the Labor
Ministry one day in Um about May of nineteen seventy two.
They had both been on strike and had both been
demanding their incorporation into what was referred to as the

(01:30:02):
Social Property Area, which this was a Day's vision for
creating a socialist economy, and this was a plan that
he had submitted to the Congress to restructure the Chilean
economy into three parts. There would have a social property
area that would be owned and operated by the state,
You'd have a mixed property area that would be a
sort of mixture between the state and private indistry. And

(01:30:24):
you'd have a private property area which would just be
business as usual private enterprise. Um. Ultimately, that plan had
been stalled out because of opposition from the Christian Democrats
that vetoed it and submitted their own alternative strategy, which
then I end a vetoed became a constitutional crisis that

(01:30:44):
got remanded to the Constitutional Tribunal in Chile, which ultimately
languished there through the end of the Enda government through
nineteen seventy three during the coup, has never really resolved. Nevertheless,
workers saw the ability to be in put into the
social property area as the solution to what they perceived

(01:31:05):
as a revolutionary socialism, right to be in a socialized economy.
And I mentioned earlier Peter Win's work on the Order
Textile mill. That's exactly what the workers at Yard or
did they decided to do. Now that is in opposition
to all End and the Popular Unity's plan, which was
to put these sort of grand monopolies in the social

(01:31:26):
property area, not necessarily smaller industries such as such as
the yard or textile mill in particular UM. There were
other perhaps textile companies that have inslated for incorporation. But
the problem is that the workers successfully petitioned UM and
pressured Allende and one there incorporation, and that unleashed what

(01:31:47):
Win would refer to as a revolution from below. And
that's what allowed the workers who sees the Labor Ministry
that day in nineteen to demand their incorporation into the
social property area, because there was a a law on
the books in Chile that stated that if there was
an unresolved labor conflict of the factory, that the state
could intervene and essentially make state control of that factory,

(01:32:11):
which would be the first step to them being incorporated
into the social property area. And so it's out of
that happenstance meeting on the doors to the Labor Ministry
when they seize it and take it over, shut it down. UM.
That then the workers of this industrial sector on the
west of Santiago begin meeting, and they begin collaborating, and

(01:32:32):
they begin organizing themselves territorially. And I guess this is
a good moment to apologize to our listeners that never
really gave a good definition as to what a court
owned industryal was in practice. Essentially, the sort of wager
of this organization was that you could organize yourself territorially
rather than by trade or industry right, which would be

(01:32:53):
the traditional way that a union would be structured. Um,
metal workers organized with metal workers, class workers organized with
the class workers, textile etcetera, etcetera. Um, and never the
twain shall meet in practice right, It's all through bureaucratic structures,
labor leaders, etcetera. As I mentioned, it wasn't until nineteen
seventy two that the rank and file is ever able

(01:33:16):
to vote themselves for their own national leadership. And so
the idea of these workers is that they're going to
create their sort of new form of organization, and after
you know, deciding to do it, they seize the territory
of so Smaipoo. They shut down traffic, and this road
that they seize is one of the main roads into

(01:33:37):
the city of Santiago from the west, which means that
the government had to respond immediately. As one worker, uh
not worker one government official put it at the time,
the workers were in the streets. We had to respond, right,
you're you're a government that it claims to represent the
working class. You're a government that it claims to be
putting yourself on the road to socialism. And the workers

(01:33:58):
have now cut off trans rotation into the city UM
and demanding sort of you to fulfill your promise, and
so they had to respond UM. Ultimately, some of the
workers that were striking at the time, specifically from the
Perlack company, which was canning company UH, they did win
the incorporation into the Social Property Area UM. And however,

(01:34:20):
other workers UM from other factories in the area did
not win their incorporation, which then produced a march into
the city of Santiago in late June, and it also
produced a platform of struggle by what was referred to
as the Workers Command of criosm PROU And that's really
the first document we have UM that shows that there

(01:34:41):
is this new structure that is demanding that the government
fulfill its promise, live up to its basic program UM.
Now following that moment, however, there's sort of a period
of demobilization that takes place in sort of mid ninet
and it's really not until October nineteen seventy two, that
you have the flourishing of this new form of organization

(01:35:03):
of the Cortona industrial across the city of Santiago. And
the reason that it takes place in October two is
because that's the moment that the opposition launches its first
concerted effort to try and topple the Illenda government. That's
what's referred to as the Boss of Strike. And essentially
what happens is there's a localized strike of truckers in

(01:35:25):
the far South of Chile and the sort of business
elites of the country are successful in transforming what is
a very localized strike in the far South into a
global lockout on the part of business owners. Right, so
they'll shutter factories, they'll shutter distribution centers of food stuffs,
they'll completely shut down transportation networks in the city of

(01:35:48):
Santiago and other cities across the country. UM. So you
can understand why they would call it the Boss of strike. Um.
And this is the moment then that you have workers
in these industrial zones that we start began our conversation
with using this model that emerged in the southwest of
Santiago as this new model to seize their factories that
they've been locked out of, to reorganize the production of

(01:36:11):
their factories and to ensure distribution, uh you know, takes
place of basic goods and services for local residents in
their community. It's really what allows the end a government
to whether the storm of the October strike and the
October crisis as it will also be known um ultimately

(01:36:32):
you know, that will reach a truce in November that
includes a cabinet shake up, also includes integrating the military
into the cabinet um as well as Ada was able
to deploy the military to sort of keep the peace
in some senses. So there is a historiographical debate to
be had between you know, how much of it was
the workers and the cordonis saving the country and saving

(01:36:53):
the government, and how much of it was the military
remaining loyal to the government that allows them to sort
of reach was referred to as the truth of November.
So I guess I want to back up for a
second and talk about what is the intern organization of
the criticize actually look like, Like are we talking about counsels?
Is this mass assemblies? Um? How how how does this

(01:37:14):
actually work on a sort of like day to day
basis the great question, and this is actually the question
that has sort of dominated a lot of the scholarship
on the Cordonists. Um Frank going to shoot, who is
sort of the leading scholar of the Cordonists essentially used
Marx's distinction of a class in itself and a class
for itself to sort of unraveled this question. So, for

(01:37:37):
we're going to shoot. The Cordona in itself is the
sort of territory, right that we began our conversation with.
And then the Cordona for itself is essentially the workers Council,
that is the governing body of the Cordona itself, which
was composed of already unionized workers, right, so it already
is a tier of working class above say just your

(01:37:59):
general a worker that worked on the factory floor. So
it's already a unionized worker. And some of that occupies
a power or a position of authority within the union,
i e. Already a or on the directorate or president,
vice president, treasurer, or secretary, so that main councils are
elected within the sort of general assembly of the court

(01:38:19):
on itself. Below you have then different commissions, right, you
have a sort of propaganda press commission. You have a
Cultural commission, you have a sports commission, you have a
security commission, right because at this time you had far
right shock troops that would spark street battles and that
would harass workers, that would also attack factories that had

(01:38:40):
been seized, so that they had um Security Commission, frontline
Defense Commission. You also had distribution commissions, uh, and then
you had other commissions that would essentially seek to coordinate
all of this um that exists. So you had a
sort of coordinating board just below the sort of general council.
And then that's what was the mediation point between that

(01:39:01):
sort of governing council and your different commissions. How how
are the people who are like who are on these
commissions selected? Are they like, are they elected or is
they just like whoever wants to be on this thing?
So it's a mix of both, right, So you you're
sort of main council itself is elected via general assembly. Um.
In terms of the commissions, the smaller commissions, we sadly

(01:39:23):
don't have great documentary evidence that you know, lays out
the process for that. So our best guests are our
best understanding would be a mix of sort of volunteerism,
as well as some sort of UM within the commission itself,
some form of election excuse me, that would take place
to sort of a point ahead of that commission that

(01:39:43):
would then coordinate with the General Council itself. UM. You know,
really what this you know what this sort of cuts
the heart of UM is that the history of the
Cordinates is a very evervescent history. UM. It's really easy
to see the Cordinates in action, right when they're doing
things like seizing control of their territory and erecting barricades.

(01:40:04):
But on that day to day level, it's a relatively
opaque sort of structure. It's really hard for us as
historians to get a view into that. You know. One
reason the Good Shoot is able to you know, unpack
as much as he has and uncover as much as
he has is because he conducted a series of oral
history interviews, UM with many of the surviving workers. UM.

(01:40:28):
And that's really one of the foundational source spaces we have.
He published this in a book in which he published
the full transcript of his interviews, so we don't it's
not just like an interpretive essay, it's the full transcript UM.
And so that's that, in combination with some of these
coordinates had local presses that we have existing UM documentary

(01:40:50):
evidence from that sort of would give you know, your
standard diagram of council commission, commission, commission lines connecting them
and things like that. UM. But one of the other
few documents that we have surviving documents we have is
what's referred to as the Manifesto of Cordona Folcuna Macana.
And this is the document that my research really is

(01:41:11):
at the heart of my research UM because while the
Unamacana is recognized as sort of one of the most
dynamic and strongest of the cordonas behind the original and studios,
my poo, we really don't have a lot. We don't
know a lot about what was going on in there.
In fact, my research was born out of a conversation
the first time I was in Chile conducting research for

(01:41:33):
my master's at toughs UM with good to Shoot himself
who told me that, like, we really don't know a
lot about what was going on day to day in
Folcuna Macana, would be really great if we could somehow
find a way to do that. Uh, And you know
that kind of stuck with me, that really wasn't my
concern at the time. I concerned at the time was
trying to understand how the cordonas had shifted from their

(01:41:54):
emergence to the coup itself, because what I was seeing
a lot of the literature was that people were using
sources from late nineteen seventy three, once the Coralines are
established and really showing up and press right, they're showing
up in the archive a lot more by nineteen seventy three,
and they're using documents from nineteen seventy three to describe
they're sort of founding in nineteen seventy two, and the

(01:42:16):
historian and me was kind of like, m hm, you know, yeah,
that's things change, right, and things change both over time
and space. And so my original concern was, you know,
what made the sort of changes from the western side
of the Sydney to the eastern side of the city.
But then when I got to u v A and
began my doctoral work, I really wanted to zero in

(01:42:38):
on Facundamkina, And really I was, you know that that
conversation with Frank was really ringing in my head, and
so you know, I kinda at u v A had
to do another master's essay as part of the program.
They there, despite having already done a master's thesis when
I was a tough exactly exactly the thesis. But you

(01:43:01):
know what it did, what it allowed me to do,
was to uh, you know, kind of play with the
sources in ways that I may not have had the
ability to do otherwise. Right, And so I really sat
with this manifesto for a long period time and really
did a close reading of this document, which you know,
a lot of times this document has shown up in

(01:43:21):
previous studies. It's shown up as a this is a
document that emerges during the October Crisis. It's the document
we know we have from this one corzone here, it is, right,
But what I uncovered was that the document itself, the
document that is headed as the Manifesto, is actually a
reworked version of a document that had circulated previously during

(01:43:42):
the October Crisis, that was produced by the Revolutionary Left movement,
the Mirror, the Far Left Party and the aren't they rists?
They are? They very much are. This is the very
far left UM party that has calling for a more
insurrectionary model UM. It's also calling for worker peasant alliance. Right, So,

(01:44:06):
it is this very much more traditional um socialist revolutionary
in that sense, compared to the sort of aendeist vision
of socialism that is being handed down from above. Right.
And so during the October crisis, there's this document that
circulates by the opposition that's running the crisis that is

(01:44:27):
essentially the petition the plago in Spanish should be the word,
but essentially the petition of of Chile um and the
mirror takes issue with the fact that the bosses issued
a petition in the name of Chile, and so they
issue a counter document that is the people's petition, the

(01:44:51):
Pliego del Pueblo. And it's a very long document, it's
a very um It reads as a essentially a manifesto
for a new revolution to take place, right, like how
to transform the present crisis into a revolutionary and breakthrough
And as you're saying, a core various model. In the

(01:45:11):
tail end of the October crisis, as Cordonacamacana is consolidating
itself right, itself forms after a factory seizure at elec
metal Um, which then unites these sort of two nodes
that existed in the territory at the north end and
the south end into one sort of communication and solidarity
network that will then become known as the Cordon that

(01:45:34):
has its first general assembly in which it takes this
document from the Mirror and begins to rework it. And
that's then what becomes the Manifesto of Cordoncuonamacana. And so
in my research and in my master's essay at the
University of Virginia, what I did was, you know, I
really compared these two documents and looked for where the differences.

(01:45:56):
You know, what's showing up here that's not showing up
in the mirors document. In other words, what glimpses can
we get of the local culture of Acunamacina itself. Um.
And one of the key differences that I find is
there's an entire section that begins the manifesto that was

(01:46:16):
the crime of the bosses, the crimes of the bosses,
and that exists in the Meryor's document as well. But
the crimes that are articulated are far slight differences. But
the in the manifesto itself, the final crime that's articulated
is that the manifesto reads that it's a crime that
the basic few elite in Chile continue to use the

(01:46:40):
country's wealth to support their privileges without giving a dignified
life to a majority of joyance. And this doesn't appear
anywhere in the Mirrors document. And it was something about
this phrase of a dignified life that really just like
cued my analytical census that sort of raised the flags
for me. And this is what then led me down

(01:47:03):
the road that I'm on now, which is the road
of looking at things like the church and the Pope
La Door movement, because the idea of dignity and the
idea of a dignified life is a key discoorse that's
circulating in the church's pastoralism right coming out As we
were speaking about earlier, the discourse of dignity is really

(01:47:24):
present in the church's outreach efforts, but it's also present
in this Pope La Door movement for housing. The idea
of a dignified house as the end goal of their
struggle is something that is, you know, rings out in
the documents that we have access to and in the
oral histories that we have, and so that really, you know,

(01:47:44):
made me think, like, what is it then about the
kunamakaina that is allowing gifts to appear here? And you know,
what can we then learn using this as our you know,
starting point and going out where and so that's on.
I decided to sort of take the story back all
the way in nineteen fifty seven and look at things

(01:48:05):
like the church, look at things like the Pope leot
Door movement, but then also extend the story past the
nineteen seventy three period, which is when the coup takes place,
which is, you know, in the historiography seen as this
hard line in this this break in in Cholyan history,
that there's a before September eleventh, nineteen seventy three, and

(01:48:26):
there's an after September eleventh, nineteen seventy three, and very
few studies crossed that line, especially studies with regards to
the labor movement, the specifically the dignity thing is is
really really interesting to me too, because so I didn't
interview like, oh God, like a month the go sort

(01:48:47):
of have lost track of time, but I didn't interview
with within with an Amazon organizer. And one of the
things that that was one of the things that was
like one of the things that he brought up is
that one of the things that like we are fighting
for his dignity, and yeah, that that does some things.
Typically I've been thinking about more because like I think
we talked about this a bit in the interview itself,
but like, like dignity as a demand is a thing

(01:49:09):
that you that you see all of the time in
like in in in you know if if if if
you are talking to a bunch of people, like on
the streets in the middle of a movement, you will
hear people talk about dignity. I mean, I think, if
if I'm remembering this correctly, this is this is one
of the this is one of the big things. This
is one of the big demands. And like the modern

(01:49:31):
Chilean protest movements, like that was one of their huge
sort of focus. But it's but it's also something like
I have never like at any I don't think I've
ever seen like a communist party say the word dignity,
like like I think it happens. I don't know if
every once in a while, like maybe you see it
if you get a document that's that's not produced by

(01:49:53):
the sort of ideological engines, but it's produced by like
just a bunch of workers in a factory. But yeah, yeah,
that that's fascinating to me because like, yeah, because that
I don't know, it's it's it seems like the structive
for dignity both yeah, like has this thing as like
a very specific discourse from the church, but it's also

(01:50:15):
something that shows up in a lot of movements where
you're not dealing with the kind of like ideological rigidity
that you get from you know, like the mirror not
the mirror is a like that that you know, like
that that's that's a very like like this is a party,
it has a line, it has a very sort of
like yeah, yeah, And it's fascinating to me that that yeah,

(01:50:40):
that that you you can see these differences where even
when they have influenced the thing that gets acted as dignity, Yeah,
I mean there is you know, I think that perhaps
what has um pushed studies of leftism, socialism, and labor
movement away from the idea of dignity as an analytic

(01:51:02):
object is there is tension here. Right, Dignity is a
highly individualized concept, but the solution for a dignified life
for all Chileans, as per this document were collective structural changes,
and so there's this tension between a collective solution and

(01:51:23):
an individual gain right. And so I think that that
both um explains why this hasn't necessarily been a focus
of a lot of studies um before. But it also,
you know, it gets to the historiography itself, which was
you know, a large product of the history here, and
so things like the Christian Democrats and things like the

(01:51:43):
Church were seen as the enemy of the popular Unity
coalition given the way that the you know, the coup
takes place and things like that, and so anything that
maybe had a whiff of Christian democracy or Christianity or
things like that was seen as as antithetical or incompatible
with the study of the left. It also gets to

(01:52:06):
the tension that you were doing a really great job
of sort of unpacking, which is this tension between the
national leadership of these parties and the national union leadership
and then everyday workers on the ground, right. And you know,
that's I think really where the strength. And this was
really the argument that I advanced in my master's thesis
the UVA is that one of the central contradictions of

(01:52:29):
the all end A period is they were competing ideas
of socialism. So from the top down and from my
end Day's view, socialism was the traditional Soviet union esque
approach and so far as it was national economic planning,
party hierarchies, things of that nature, right, discipline at the

(01:52:50):
base and upward and upward planning from the top down.
But what I think the manifesto and the history of
the Quinmacina helps us understand is that for every day individuals,
that their idea of socialism didn't have anything to do
with state economic planning. It didn't have anything to do
with expertise and technocrats and things of that nature. It

(01:53:11):
had to do with the idea that like I need
sheets from my bed, I need food for my child.
I need the ability to you know, have enough sleep
to be able to get up and go to the
factory the next day. Right, I need to be able
to live a dignified life, to be able to then
you know, carry out my work, my obligation as a

(01:53:32):
worker in the historical movement of socialism, and so I
think that this is really what um This tension is
then what allows for the sort of destabilization to take
place um as the opposition consolidates and ultimately destabilizes the
identic government in nine Yeah, I think this is a

(01:53:53):
tension that like, I mean, I think there's there's different
versions of it too that you see sort of across
the story. Like one of the ways that it manifests
is this battle between the people who think socialism is
about like is national like state national incorporation, that people
who think socialism is about like direct control at the

(01:54:13):
point of production by the people who are doing the work.
But but I think also, yeah, the question of dignity
is it's like it's this, it's like, dignity is this
expression that's like maximally bad for um, like if you're
like you know, if you're like a you're you're you're
a material you're like you know, you're a historical materialist theoretician. Right,
It's it's it's the worst possible slogan because on the

(01:54:36):
one hand, it's like it's not materialist, right, like what
is dignity? There's no dignity has no class relation, like
what is that? You know, And it's it's it's simultaneously
like it's not with jerious enough. It's too reformist because like, oh, well,
you can give people dignity by just buying them off
for like increasing wages, or you could have a class compromise,
and that can give you dignity, but then simultaneously it's
the thing that's too radical because the problem with dignity
also is it like, yeah, I don't know, like there's

(01:54:58):
there's no guarantee that you're going to get dignity if
like your factory is controlled by the state, like exactly,
and yeah, and this is why, like you see almost
identically the state, different name, yeah, and and yeah, it's
like it's why you see like the uprisings that happen um,
I mean really starting in Hungary. But yeah, this is why,
like that they're uprising in Czechoslovakia looks almost identical to

(01:55:20):
like the uprising that happens in France. It's because they're
both like there there's you know, you're you're like you
the factory worker in a factory in Czechoslovakia and you,
the factory worker in the factory in France are dealing
with essentially the same thing. And so it's it's this
kind of like I don't know, it's it seems like
it's it's it's this perfect sort of like cipher for

(01:55:43):
all of these kind of political differences that that that
that manifests this this this really old tension in what
the worker's movement is going to be that's been being
fought out since eighteen thirties and that. Yeah, but I
think that like if we as scholars and if we

(01:56:03):
use intellectuals, are really serious about when we say that
we're going to study things from below, then I think
that we have to take the workers at their word, right,
And so like, for example, I presented a version of
my of my master's thesis at a I studied was
it a program in Bologna for a summer um And
so I was presenting this and to the you know,

(01:56:25):
and the Italian leftists in the room, um really came
you know, came down on this question of it sounds
like what they're describing isn't socialism because they're much more
interested in distribution and not interested in the point of production,
which isn't socialist. And you know, and all I could say,
and all I could respond to this is like, that's

(01:56:46):
what my subjects are using in the archive. And for me,
it's far more productive to look for those slippages and
look for those spaces and the archive when they are
saying something that may be different than what we under
stand it to be and that's a lot more productive
avenue for analysis, and that, to me is really how

(01:57:06):
we fulfill this obligation to study things from below, because
we have to actually take them at their word and
understand and try to understand what that actually meant for them, right,
and what that meant on an everyday basis. And I
think that there's a there's a sort of like practical
like organizational like like you know, if if if you

(01:57:28):
today want to do something like this, like I think
I think there's there's an imperative there too, which is
that like you actually do have to take seriously what
people think and how that's different from the way that
like you the organizer are thinking about this, because those
are things that don't overlap and a lot of times,

(01:57:49):
like you know, and it's it is not enough to
just be like, well, these people want diggity. What they
actually want is socialism or like what they actually want
is the abolition of the classes. It's like you have
to like believe them when they say that they want something,
and you know, and and when you don't do that,
and when you get these sort of disjuncts between like

(01:58:10):
when you get these disjuncts between the sort of the
sort of party bureaucracy on the top and what like
people in the streets who are season factories want like, yeah,
I think like things start to sort of come apart, exactly.
And I know I think that, um that if we don't,
you know, depart from the perspective of staying true to
what the archive gives us, then there's only a risk

(01:58:33):
that we're you know, every historian, every scholar is going
to inject their own interpretation onto a document, right, But
the best way to sort of safeguard that is to,
you know, stay true to what it's saying, and that
you know, the same goes for an activist and an
organizer as for an intellectual, right, Like, if you don't
depart from the perspective of what your constituents or what

(01:58:56):
your group is saying, you know, what they're really saying,
the word that they're using to describe what they're demanding,
then you're only ever going to just be trying to
sort of fit the you know, the square peg in
the round hole. Yeah, and and that can go really
really really spectacularly broad. Yeah, exactly, And you know, and

(01:59:19):
that is you know what then leads to know in
the case of the cordonus that will then lead to
tensions that will really break out into the open in
nineteen seventy three, in early nineteen seventy three, when the
um Orlando MEAs the same person that starts that polemic
in nineteen seventy two. By this point it becomes Finance
Minister Um in the end administration and presents a plan

(01:59:43):
to sort of devolve some of the factories that have
been seized during the October crisis right back to their
original owners. Uh. And then this creates a huge problem,
huge tension between the base between workers and these factories
that had sort of sacrificed everything and put their lives
literally put their lives on the line to seize the
factories in the first place. Um. And so then you

(02:00:05):
have another sort of moment of mobilization of the corzonies
across the city of Santiago in early vent three. That's
very much an opposition to the government. Now, can I
can I ask a brief sort of framing question about this,
which is that, like, okay, so we talked about this
in in in the interview we did with some modern

(02:00:26):
Chalian activists, but like, what what is the population of
Santiago relative to like the population of the entirety of
Chile at this point, Like, how is it? Yeah, that
is a great question that I don't actually have statistics
like that. I can rattle no worries in my head. Um,
but you know, I mean there's there is Uh, it

(02:00:46):
is a great you know, Santia always the most populous
region for sure, all right, and so rather the most
populous city and then sort of metropolitan region itself is
very densely popular. And is it still like like a
pretest nificant like population of the entire country or is
it less It is a significant population of the whole

(02:01:07):
country for sure. Um, but there is tension in this.
And then this is kind of the reason why I
always try to steer somewhat away from these types of questions,
because I'm sure this came up in your conversation with
Chilean activists, is that you know, there is the phrase
that Santiago is not Chile, and so there is a
there is a tendency to rely on statistics of Santiago's population,

(02:01:28):
of the metropolitan region's population to say like, oh, this
is where the majority of people live. So if it
happened in Santiago, then that must be true for all
of Chile. Um, and that just isn't the case, right,
Chile is a huge country. It may be very narrow,
this is very long north to south, uh and you know,
it is very distinct across the many regions of Chile.

(02:01:52):
And so I have very much on the side of
those that argue that Santiago is not Chile. Unfortunately, in
the case of the cordonis, the majority of them do
exist in Santiago. That said, in Concepcion. Um. You know,
another Chile further to the south of Santiago, there is
one of the other cities that we know for sure

(02:02:12):
actually did have cordonias that were moderately successful as well.
In fact, there is and now I'm completely forgetting her name, um,
but there is a historian that has published a book
about the cordonis in Concepcion. This is one of the
few studies that sort of tries to look at cordona
Is beyond Santiago itself, you know, And a very well

(02:02:34):
taken point um on on my part here that like
you know, a lot of our discussion today has been
about Santiago, and so it's very much limited to Yeah,
this is a this is a problem that you get
a lot with like large urban movements, like I mean,
so I run into Tianamen all the time, where it's like,
you know, okay, so Tianeman, there's there's there's the big

(02:02:56):
thing in Tianament. But this happens like cities all over
China and there's just nothing. There's like almost nothing that
has ever sort of like been written or has gotten
out of what happened to everywhere else in the country.
And so you get this, you get this very myopic
view of like what was happening that I think loses
a lot of the sort of like I mean, a

(02:03:17):
lot of the diversity and a lot of the sort
of you get a reality that is shaped by the
specific experience of one place, which is not the safic
experience of every other place, right exactly So like in
the case of like Santiago and Cordona's right, like the
labor working class that's making up this is factory labor,

(02:03:39):
as we were saying, at the sort of level of
consumer products. Right, Let's say, if you've had a cordon
and say about Crazo, uh, the sort of coastal city
of the ports city, um where you have a much
different labor force, right with doc workers things like that,
You're going to have a much different formation that's going

(02:04:00):
to take place. And so as much as like my
initial sort of attempt to understand the differences within the
geography of Santiago, um, you know, I think was important,
I always have to remind myself that, like, it's still
just this one city, which is very different from the
experience of a vast majority of chill lands. I mean,

(02:04:21):
it's definitely a moment in which you know, there is
still a very large rural population for sure, And I
guess like that that brings me to so like, yeah,
in in terms of sort of okay, I guess there's
two directions here. One I guess is about what is

(02:04:43):
the like, what is the rural population doing like while
this is going on. And the second one, well, I
guess I guess we could start there. Yeah. I mean,
as we sort of mentioned earlier, there isn't a growing
reform that is happening, right, and you are having a
labor movement that is picking up rapid steam in the countryside, right,

(02:05:04):
and you are having land seizures that's that are taking
place and picking up steam. Um, and so that's a
lot of what's going on in the countryside is UH
both UH an increase in land seizures UH and increasingly
militant land seizures. Is that, But you're also having UM
an increased unionization. Right. So the labor code in Chile
had a different set of regulations for rural labor than

(02:05:29):
it did for urban or factory labor. Right. And so
one of the things that on the end a period
that we see is a sort of flourishing of organized
labor in the countryside. So you are having a lot
of party militants going out into the countryside as well
as UH labor leaders locally in the countryside that are
organizing rural laborers. UM. So you are having mass um

(02:05:53):
union drives unfortunately, and I will be the first admit
that I am largely you know, and this is again
a consequence of like being an urban historian, I am
largely ignorance of the inner dynamics what is happening on
in the countryside. UM. Scholars like Florencia Malon or Heidi
Tinsman have both produced outstanding works on this question. UM

(02:06:16):
in terms of the relationship between land seizures and gender
and indigenosity UM that is taking place on the countryside.
So I guess, yeah, so you know, okay, so we yeah,
we can't get it too much detail on this, but
I would would it be broadly like accurate to say
that it's not true that you're dealing with a situation
where there's a huge sort of divide in the level

(02:06:38):
of mobilization organization between the city and rural regions like that.
This this isn't like a sort of like like you're
not dealing with like like a vonde peasant situation where
you have this enormous sort of reactionary base in the
country side. Right, Yeah, you know, you definitely don't. Yeah,
it's definitely not that UM. And you know there are
attempts over the course of the illenda years, you know,
the mirrors one of the sort of fronts that this

(02:07:00):
is playing out in. But even the cordonates themselves, right, So,
like one of the initial UM rallies and sort of
mobilizations of the studios Maipu cordone is for UM the
jailing and imprisonment of a series of rural militants and
rural labors that in the area of Malipia. UM there

(02:07:23):
are some activists and workers that are jailed UH and
those the cordon actually marches into the city of Santiago,
into the downtown part of Santiago to demand their release. Um.
And this is like a disparate geography here that we're
talking about, and so UM it is you know, this
is an instance in which he's trying to see these
sort of links be both be made and strengthened between

(02:07:50):
UH factory labor in cities and world labor in the countryside.
And I guess it brings me to the second point,
which is like, Okay, so there is a right in
Chile and it is not happy, um very much. Yeah. Yeah,
And I guess one of the things I guess I
wanted to talk about was so my my impression about

(02:08:11):
a lot of what is happening in nine seventy three
has to do with the fact that Chile's like trucker's
movement is really right wing and that that has well,
so part of that. Part of that is the CIA.
Part of that is just this like a like part
of it is the CIA's ability to keep striking truckers

(02:08:34):
afloat and they're not working on. Part of it also
is a consequence from this moment in October, right, in
which the national business elite and national economic elite in
Chile transform that trucker strike into the boss's strike. Right,
So you do have this alliance being formed and strengthened

(02:08:54):
at that moment as well, which will, as you're referring
to invent three, there is another truck or strike that
takes place that has even been more crippling in some
senses than the initial one. Yeah. And then also also
as I will mention literally every time, even though I
I don't know if I can say that on air,
but the part that I can say on air is um,

(02:09:16):
yeah to their eternal, ignominious non glory. The a f
l c I O is also heavily involved in that
which is fun and good and uh yeah, a f
l c I Oh, please stop overthrowing governments, helping deference.
It's a very it's a very afi c IO history

(02:09:38):
in relationship is actually very fascinating because during the dictatorship
they will actually be on the other side and actually
helping labor get back on its feet. Um and as
a key point of resistance. So they're um in the
late nineties of these organizing a boycott of Chilant products,
which actually is a key point of pressure on the
dictatorship to begin allowing for new um for a sort

(02:10:01):
of new labor movement to begin emerging. Yeah, which that
I at some point like I don't I don't think
it can happen here, but I just did the podcast name,
but yeah, I don't don't think. I don't think it
can be this time. But like, yeahs at some point
I do want to take a deeper dive into sort
of like what the a f l C I O
is doing through this period because they are like they're

(02:10:21):
all over like yeah, there's a fascinating history. Yeah, Like
I mean like you know, like my my, my, my
last a fl C what are you doing things for
this episode? Is so the fl C has the policy
where like they don't like they don't associate with like
like state union federations and they make one exception for it,
and it's State Union Federation of the military died katorship

(02:10:42):
in South Korea, which is like it like a good job, guys,
like doing great here, this is going great. Yeah, but yeah,
I guess can we can we get into sort of
the the crisis is that like are the crisis that
like precipitate the end of all end A totally yeah.

(02:11:04):
So by this point, you know, as I mentioned by
the opposition is largely um disarticulated. You have the National Party,
you have the sort of far right organization UM that
would be translated as Fatherland and Freedom pot three. I
delivered that, or I translated as father land and freedom

(02:11:24):
because I think it has a better, it conjures it better.
Others will translated as father land and liberty. UM. But
I'm a sucker for a literative forms, and so that's
the translation that I use. I also think it conjures
more the sort of fascistic elements, which this very much
was a fascist organization. UM. Yes, No, I mean a

(02:11:48):
lot of you know low Chicago boys will have ties
to Pot three Oliver to that um. And so there
have you know, rightest shock troops that are fomenting conflicts
in the streets, um, that are also setting off bombs
that are crippling the power grid, especially much later in

(02:12:08):
nineteen seventy three. UM. But following that moment in nineteen
seventy one, when the Popular Unity government is choose the
alliance with the Christian Democrats, the Christian that pushes the
Christian Democrats to begin forming an alliance with the National Party.
And what happens then is that the left wing of
the Christian Democrats splits from that party to form its

(02:12:30):
own party of Left Christians. But then the consequence of
that is that that means that the more rightest elements
of the Christian Democrat party can consolidate their power and
stream their ties with the national power. So that by
you know, late nineteen seventy two, and very much by
the March nineteen seventy three elections, which were sort of
the key electoral moment that everyone was looking to. UM.

(02:12:54):
At this moment, um, you have a you have a
solid alliance of the right. UM. Now the end a
coalition will win the March elections. UM. And that is
really the moment that scholars agree that the switches sort
of flipped for an opposition and they realize that they

(02:13:17):
can no longer defeat the popular unique coalition at the
ballot box, and that they now need to use extra
constitutional means right, and so they begin developing sort of
deploying the full force of those means. UM. And here
is a point where the role of gender is very
important because a lot of what the Right will do

(02:13:38):
will be to mobilize the power of the power and
symbol of women protesting um as a way to delegitimate
the end a government and to de legitimate key figures
uh in the end administration. So earlier there is a
key protest that happens, which is the march of angry
pots um and this is a a very traditional form

(02:14:01):
of protests in Latin America which the Castle Lazo right
the sort of banging of pots and pans in protest um,
but the Right organizes it to be largely carried out
by women as a way to protest what is seen
as a you know, a lack of supply of basic
food necessities for um families in Chile, which you know,

(02:14:24):
we now know is a result of black market speculation
in hoarding on a lot of the part of the
sort of distribution centers controlled by the Right. Nevertheless, they
essentially use this symbol of women heads of households marching
in the streets in opposition to end. So that's one
thing that happens later in nineteen three they will sort

(02:14:46):
of reuse this tactic and deploy women to protest in
front of UM the houses of key military figures UM
that are in the Cabinet of End at this point UH.
This will then forced the resignation of some of these
figures from the allend cabinet. And then one of the
key figures that has then replaced in the cabinet is

(02:15:09):
none other than a cost Opine Chat. It will be
welcomed into the cabinet and specifically will be welcoming into
the cabinet because he's seen as a strict constitutionalist in
the Chilean military UH and is not seen as any
sort of threat to what is going on. Meanwhile, in
late June of nineteen seventy three, there is an attempted

(02:15:30):
coup that takes place in which you have a rogue
regiment of the Chilean Army UM deploying tanks in front
of Lamlada, the presidential palace in Santiago. UH. That is
large that is put down. It's also one of the
last moments that the cord donates themselves will mobilize and
that all the Coresonists in Santiago will seize their territories,

(02:15:53):
erect barricade. It's cut off transportation to prevent any sort
of large scale coup from taking play essentially to try
and isolate that regiment just within front of LaMeta, to
allow for the wings of the armed forces that are
still loyal to the president at this point to put
that down. So that has put down, and then in

(02:16:15):
between late in June nineteen seventy three and September ninety
three is what scholars, specifically Peter Winn for two, is
a creeping coup begins to take place. And the creeping
coup has, you know, a multi fascist strategy. As I
mentioned earlier, there is the bombing of electrical grids, so
you have you know, increasing blackouts, instability, things of that nature, right,

(02:16:38):
fearmongering in very real sense, palpable senses. UM, you also
have a shake up amongst different members of different branches
of the armed forces, which those that are loyal to
the constitution, that are the constitutionalists, are pushed out, and
as a result, then you have the coup plotters that

(02:17:00):
are ready to essentially overthrow the government. UM achieve positions
of authority in which that they can give orders. And
this is a key factor. This may seem like a
small factor, but the Chilean military had historically been trained
in the Prussian model of military training. Right, So it
was a very strict regimented hierarchical structure in which historically

(02:17:23):
had been very loyal within that hierarchy. So it was
important that the coup plotters would achieve positions of higher
authority to be able to actually effectuate a coup, especially
after the attempted coup fails in June. So on the
morning of September eleventh, UM, you have Hawker hunter jets

(02:17:44):
that again bombing the presidential palace UH, and you have
a deployment of UM military forces throughout the city to
put down any sort of armed force or any sort
of resistance. Right leading up to this moment, you had
deployments of both the Chilean militarized police, the Kada brows,

(02:18:05):
which are actually functionally militaries. They're part of the armed
forces in Chile, it's not just militarized in the sense
of tactics and weaponry, to raid factories in the search
of arms, right, things of that nature. So you already
had UM this sort of daily occurrence taking place. In
a consequence of that, right, is that then these forces
know the weak spots in these factories, they know the

(02:18:28):
capabilities of these factories and things like that. Uh Cordlon
Vacuna McCane will actually be the place that will witness
some of the fiercest fighting of what would be referred
to as the Battle of Santiago. You know, often when
we talk about the Chilean coup, we talked about strictly
a September eleventh, ninety three. UM. The Battle of Santiago
actually rages for a few days after September eleven. It's

(02:18:51):
not just a quick UM you know, in and out
mission there is there is, there are forms of resistance
that take place UM, and the Namacana is one of
the places that this takes place. There are two Chilean historians,
Mario Garces and Sebastian Laba, that published a masterful, wonderful
book UM that is all about as UM called the

(02:19:13):
kun La Legua and Lagua was a historic Pope Lacion
that was just to the west of the Pacuna Macana
factory and the workers of factories in Pocuna Macana, specifically
the Sumar textile mill that we mentioned earlier. UM will
essentially lead UM a march gathering other workers, saving those
that they can and essentially holding their ground for as

(02:19:36):
long as they can in the Poplacion of La Lagua uh.
In fact, I have some testimonies of workers and documents
that I've uncovered. UM. One worker in particular described the
battle that raged there is as being like hell on earth. UM.
That they had helicopters firing from the sky, they had
tanks surrounding them. UM. So they were under fire from

(02:19:58):
both the land up in the air, and so ultimately
then the government is overthrown, right UM. I end. It's
unclear to this day if I end a committed suicide,
if he was killed, we just we don't know. We
do know that he refused to leave the presidential palace.
We do know that he delivers one final address, very

(02:20:20):
famous address UM over the radio of Chile. UM. And
then after that week we know that that his corpse
UM appears and a lot of the materials that the
military will put out. Military takes control of communication networks.
Many of the communication networks and press networks were already
controlled by the right UM, so it's very easy for

(02:20:42):
them to gain access to these methods UM to sort
of spread their message. UM. And this is where things,
you know, historically speaking, get very interesting. In the difference
between our sort of um conventional wisdom and what actually
took place it or takes place. Right, The original structure

(02:21:02):
of the military junta that takes command was designed as
a tripartite structure that would rotate amongst different branches of
the armed forces to prevent precisely what happens with the
figure of Gusto Pinochet taking power himself, to prevent such
a thing from happening. Right. Uh. Ultimately, though, over the

(02:21:24):
course of the nineteen seventies, you have Pino Chick consolidating power. Uh.
In fact, if you've ever seen the image of him
that's sitting cross arm with the sunglasses on, it's like
one of the most recognizable photos of him from this time.
That photo is actually the actual original version of the photo.
You have the full junta behind him taking a picture.

(02:21:45):
But yeah, yeah, and it's not so much even he
did it, but it's that that photo just over time
became so associated with him because it's such a starring
image of him sitting there. Um that it it's sort
of functionally recreated the sort of purging that heat takes
that he'll carry out essentially. You know, also what they

(02:22:07):
will do immediately is that they will close the Congress,
they will dissolve the COOT, the National Labor Federation that
we discussed earlier, UH, and they will essentially dissolve the
UM conciliation councils that oversawing sort of collective bargaining. They
will freeze any sort of petitions pleegos from factory labors,

(02:22:30):
and they will begin to purge labor leaders across both
the national spectrum of labor leadership as well as you know,
through the course of and well into will be begin
purging factory level leaderships. UM. They will institutionalized torture, UM,

(02:22:50):
they will institutionalized forced disappearance, and all of these things
UM constitute how they're essentially able to hold onto path
hour In those early days, there's a state of siege
that has declared, which means that all civil liberties UM
have essentially been suspended. And all of this is in
the name of national security. And that's really the key thing, UM.

(02:23:14):
And so everything from the labor movement is shut down UM,
and then it will begin to re emerge. And that's
really like where I think my research and my dissertation
and of a key intervention that that I'm trying to
make is that you know, seventy three wasn't the end
of the story, Like, yes, it was the end of
the Cordons induced to gothers with a capital C and

(02:23:35):
a capital I. But the idea of a territorial labor
organization will re emerge in the late nineteen seventies and
in the nineteen eighties when protests against the dictatorship began
to flourish. And this is something that I mean, I
guess this is the projecting into the future, but this
is something that I was I don't know that thinking about,
I don't quite know how to think about. Which is

(02:23:57):
the connection between like can we draw online between the Cardonis,
the sort of the pro democracy movement that eventually, like
through Pinochet's incompetence and their skill, like brings down the
dictatorship and the sort of the really vibrant like me
really for the last like twenty years, like incredibly vibrant

(02:24:19):
sort of like student protests, but I mean just just
sort of like like leftist street movements in Chile, because
I mean, like, I don't know, like I guess the
impression that I got when I was talking to like
the Chilean organizers was that like organized labor wasn't playing

(02:24:42):
much of a role in this, and so yeah, I
guess I was just wondering, like, how, how how do
we think about sort of this trajectory? And I know
this is like fifty years but no, I mean, I
mean my dissertation is trying to the sort of branch
this full trajectory. And it's the beautiful, wonderful question. Um.
And you're right, you know, the the activists that you

(02:25:03):
spoke to. Um, that is a very common, um, commonly
held view. And it's a commonly held view for a
couple of reasons. One is that one of the what
is seen as one of the main protagonists in the
pro democracy movements that take place in the nineteen eighties
are precisely those figures we talked about at the very

(02:25:23):
beginning of our conversation. The Popolodorus the Publodorus are seen
as the protagonists that protests the dictatorship, largely because they
are right. This is I'm not trying to say that
they were not by any means, They clearly were. Um.
We have great studies of this. Kathy Schneider's book Shantytown
Protests and p H Chile is just a wonderful study

(02:25:43):
of this um. They were protagonists and the geographic space,
the site of the Pope lacon Is, is where a
lot of the protests are going down. UM. But labor
did play a part, and labor did play a key part.
And this is part of my argument is that not

(02:26:04):
only does labor play a part, labor plays a key
part in initiating the protests that begin in the early
nineteen eighties. Now by the late nineteen eighties, the there
people are certainly right that labor is no longer anything
close to the power it was pre nineteen seventy three
or even earlier in that decade by any means. But

(02:26:28):
in the late nineteen seventies and the early nineteen eighties,
specifically in the space of a kunamakina and workers that
are coming out of that tradition play incredibly instrumental and
key roles. So, for example, there's a gentleman Manuel boost Dos.
It's a member of the Christian Democratic Party. He's a
worker at the Sumar Textile mill in the cotton plants. Specifically,

(02:26:51):
he will at the time become president of Sumars Cottons Union.
He will then go on to along with other labor
leaders found the National Union Coordinator where the c n S.
You will become president of that and he will become
one of the key figures along with other labor leaders

(02:27:11):
that will initiate and lead to the pro democracy protests
that begin in the early nineteen eighties. So much so
that he is UM at one point relegated, which this
is a way one of the tactics the military used,
UM would be to relegate uh perceived agitators or provocateurs

(02:27:33):
two different parts of the country right out of Stay
Santiago in the case of Bustos, so at one point
he is relegated to the far north of the country.
He's also exiled at a certain point. He's also jailed
at a certain point. UM. So even if we you know,
even if we don't look at the archival record in
terms of what Bustos is saying, what Bustos is doing,

(02:27:54):
if we just look at what the military is doing
to Bustos and to his colleagues in n S, then
we that should tell us that they perceived them as
a legitimate threat, and that they perceive labor as a
legitimate threat. And this really, you know, explains why you
have a shift in UM. The dictatorship's policies with regard

(02:28:18):
to labor between the early nineteen seventies the late nineteen
seventies and eighties. So here I'm drawing a lot on
the work of Rodrigo Araya, who is a scholar here
in Chile who has done a great deal in showing
that early in the dictatorship you had a series of
labor leaders who were opposed to Allende, who were still

(02:28:38):
labor right, still pro labor, but anti Laftist and anti Allende,
who take control of some of the key labor federations,
namely the Copper Federation, and begin to sort of designate
themselves as the key figures of labor UM. And there's
an attempt then by the dictatorship, who essentially make a

(02:29:01):
corporateist model of labor and integrate them and control them
from the top down. UM. Ultimately that backfires because in
doing so, they the military refuses to recognize some of
these individuals and instill their own um sort of puppets,
if you will, their own labor leaders, which then causes resentment,

(02:29:22):
which then pushes that group to an oppositional stance UM,
which then allows for more connectives to shoot more connections
to be made between that group, which would be loosely
referred to as the Group of ten UH and individuals
such as Bustos and others that are forming this National
Union Coordinator. Those two groups will ultimately in the early

(02:29:44):
nineteen eighties form a new group, which is the National
Workers Command UM. And this actually group is formed at
a point in which Bustos himself has been exiled out
of the country. UM. So, you know, there's a debate
to be had with not the formation of the Command
was an attempt to consolidate control away from the Union

(02:30:06):
Coordinator and Bustos, which was much more open to working
with members of the left and the communists at the time,
compared to the say of the Group of Ten, who
you know, we're much more opposed to working with leftists. UM.
So that's really you know, one of the big differences
between labor and a pre nineteen seventy three period and
a post nineteen seventi three period is there's still a

(02:30:31):
struggle for labor rights, protection of workers in unionism, right
to strike, right to collectively bargain. But what's missing in
that post nineteen seventy three period, or rather what has
been murdered disappeared, tortured, executed by the dictatorship. Is a
theory of power for unions, right, the sort of leftist influence,

(02:30:53):
you know, you could call it Marxism, Leinism, you can
call it sort of a social democracy, but some theory
of power that animated unionism and animated the labor movement
in the pre nineteen seventy three period, that is is
essentially being purged over that course of the nineteen seventies
into the nineteen eighties. UM. But in addition to these

(02:31:15):
sort of national level developments, which you know, for me,
Boostos is the straight line that connects the territory of
Kunamacina to this national level. Within Vucunumacina itself, you have
two groups that begin to emerge in the late nineteen
seventies nineteen eighties. The first would be the Solidarity Group
UH and then the second would be Union Unity. And

(02:31:38):
both of these new organizations emerging of Acunamericana and emerged
specifically as territorial organizations of labor. So they are in
opposition too what BOOSTOS and others are trying to do,
which is reform the sort of national labor hierarchy, hierarchy
bureaucratic or you know, the bureaucratic excuse me approach to labor.

(02:32:02):
They're specifically opposed to that and are arguing that labor
should be organized territorially because it allows a greater flexibility
for the workers to respond to the new realities of
a dictatorship, and specifically to the new realities of the
new constitution that the dictatorship puts in place in as

(02:32:23):
well as the new labor plan that they put in
place through a series of laws in the late nineteen
seventies in early nineties that severely curtail labor's ability to
both organize. So, for example, the closed shop is essentially
done away with. UH. They also, UM will limit the

(02:32:44):
ability to strike. You could you can strike, However, after
thirty days UM the management can begin hiring scab labors
essentially to break the strike. And if a strike lasted
past sixty days, that the management was allowed to fire
all of striking workers because after sixty days they were

(02:33:05):
considered to have walked off the job and we're no
longer considered employees. Also, one of the key you know
innovations that the sort of technocratic advisors to the dictatorship
as um implements in the new labor Code is the
individual labor contract, right, which means that workers now are

(02:33:26):
contracted individually, which also then prevents any sort of national
level union from bargaining on behalf of a sector wide
or an industry wide contract. That is no longer allowed.
And so it's for all of those reasons that you
have these two groups begin to emerge and saying no,
we need to focus our efforts on the base, we

(02:33:46):
need to focus them territorially. And for me, that is
a straight line between the legacy of the cordonis and
what we're seeing in the nineties, and then the other
sort of discursive straight line, like if that's the material
kind action, the discursive straightliness of these organizations are using
the discourse of dignity and a dignified life in the

(02:34:07):
ex source material that we have. That makes sense, and
I think that also, But that also, I guess partly
explains why, like why organized labor like ceases after that point,
because I guess it is just sort of like the
it's the sort of the the anilable shifts in what's
happening in terms of the actual law. And then actually,

(02:34:30):
I don't know, I guess I just should ask about this,
like is there also a sort of like like you
also get a sort of like like another sort of
geographic shift in in how factories are distributed, like through
the use Totally you have essentially a d industrialization, a
policy of the industrialization, and you have a total reversion

(02:34:53):
to what we can think of as a nineteenth century
economic export economy UM for Chile. Right, so you have
much more focus and investment into commodity exports, be it UM,
the fishing sector, the agricultural sector, things like that. Right. So, like,
for example, if you go into your grocery store, uh

(02:35:13):
and look at some of the fruits, specifically, say grapes,
more often than not they're going to come from Chile,
especially in off seasons. Right. The benefit of Chile being
in the southern hemisphere, for say, consumers in the United
States is that then you have access to things that
you wouldn't have access to otherwise. Uh. And so the
dictatorship will prioritize this UM over the idea of industry.

(02:35:36):
So you have a total reversion to UM, importing goods
and services that would have been produced nationally or locally UM.
And so what this means then for a lot of
the labor that happens in these zones right as you
have massive layoffs. That's another innovation UM that the dictatorship

(02:35:59):
and the Chicago Boys will introduce as the ability for
management to fire UM at a mass level and have
that be legal UM. And so you have high you
have skyrocketing unemployment amongst factory label labor, such that like yes,
by the nineteen eighties have a refounding of a national

(02:36:20):
labor confederation also the acronym being the COOT. The difference, however,
is that it's under such a much different labor framework.
It's also in a situation in which industrial labor is
just not the main sector of labor UH and in
its founding statutes, if the Coup pre nineteen seventy three
was identified as the only national labor confederation, the statutes

(02:36:45):
poste and in the late eighties when it's reformed, allows
for there to be other national confederations UM. And actually,
this is one of the great debates that takes place
between those organizations at the base Infocuamkina and these national
level organizations is whether or not there should be one
labor confederation or whether or not there should be many

(02:37:07):
different labor confederations organized all ideological lines, which is essentially
a code word for anti communism. Right. That the idea
of the ideological labor central was a way to exclude
the left from gaining control in organized labor like it
had in the pre nineteen period. And so by the

(02:37:28):
dawn of nineteen nineties, when democracy, or rather when democratic
elections returned to Chile, you have labor in a much
different position. Uh. And that's why you have this very
weakening UM series or period under the Concert government, the
ruling coalition, the governing coalition that takes power in Patricia

(02:37:51):
Apo and winning the presidency. Um, it's just much different.
And it's it's a strait jacket illegally because the ninete
Constitution is still in place, right, it's still in place
to this day. Uh. And that's actually been it's the
period of Concert test that is the period where you
really have the most weakening of UM labor. It's also

(02:38:14):
the period we have the most privatizations that are taking place,
just former state owned companies. It's we could say that
it's the period that is the most neoliberal period UH
in Chile relative to the civilian The period of civilian
military dictatorship. Yeah, and I guess that's sort of like

(02:38:36):
that that that's the thing that it just gets you to, Well,
the last sort of twenty years of like of student
led protests and of sort of ecological protests I make
I guess you like Thempucha have always been like fighting,
but the way that from from Spanish clone the only

(02:38:56):
indigenous group that was never conquered by the Spanish, but
a gain. But I guess like like the axis on
which the left is sort of like built on like
through that period just shifts and that's I guess where
you get the modern like that the sort of modern
like configuration of the left that's been in the streets
and last sort of like you do. And this is

(02:39:19):
a this is the reason why I sort of draw
a hard line ending my study in for two reasons.
One is that it's the is The first is the
election of Pineta to the president city, Sebastian Pinietta as
his first term in and so it's the first moment
that someone from the concertson is not elected as the

(02:39:42):
president they had governed sent from. So um that's really
the what Peter Win and other scholars have referred to
as the putch check period which extends all the way
from three to that moment, is inclusive of the Concert
government because of fair um adherence to the neoliberal economic model. UM.

(02:40:06):
That's when that period ends. Also a year later in
eleven is when the student protests, and that's when you
have a new cycle in Chilean social movements led by
the students. Right prior, you know posted the return of
democracy again, the return of democratic elections in nineteen ninety.

(02:40:26):
I think this is a very important distinction between a
return to democracy and a return of democratic elections, which
seems to be a confusion between not a confusion but
a splippage between the form of democracy, a free and
fair elections, and the content of democracy UM. And so
a lot of people will referred to nineteen nineties to
return to democracy. But I think that the past thirty

(02:40:48):
years of governments in Chile shows us, especially the past
two years of uprising and resistance against that model, show
us that democracy has yet to fully return UM. But
in that period, you know, in the nine nineties, on
street protests were not seeing as an affected effective measure

(02:41:13):
UM as a as as the way to protest. Right,
they obviously were effective in the period of dictatorship UM.
But after that there's no there there's a nut not
necessarily discrediting of sorts, right, but there's not the emphasis
on them that there was during the dictatorship, and certainly
not that there was in the pre nineteen three period.

(02:41:36):
It's not until the students take to the streets in
eleven that you have this revival of the street protest
as a as a viable form um of resistance and
protests in Chile. And you know, it's no surprise then
that in October twenty nineteen, when the the s e
though the uprising takes place, that it's students that were

(02:41:58):
once again the vanguard of this UM. And you know
when they're jumping turnstiles in the subways too, in protest
of proposed transportation hike. UM I was. I was actually
luckily enough to be living here in early pandemic UM,
and a lot of people that I spoke to UM
at protests and things like that, were very quick to

(02:42:21):
tell me that it was not thirty pos it's thirty
years that they were protesting. Yeah, And you know, and
I guess that also like the left wing forces that
took over the state like it's it's it's the reason
why a lot of that wounds up sort of being
about the constitution, because yeah, you know you still have this,

(02:42:42):
you still have Pinochet's like constition remains in fact. Yeah, yeah,
And how I used to know the name of this
is and one of the episodes, I think, I think
like the guy who wrote it like it was like
an enormous hyak fanboy and called it like the Constitution
of Liberty or something. Yeah, it was. It was a

(02:43:02):
hand it was a hand selected team of very few
individuals that was handpicked by the dictatorship to write the constitution. Um.
You know, there was the there was a veneer of
democratic support insofar as the dictatorship in nineteen eighty holds
a referendum on whether or not to vote up, down, yes,

(02:43:24):
or no for the new constitution. Right, um, the yes
vote one. However, there is many sources at the time
as well as scholars that have claimed that that victory
was not a valid victory um by any means. Um.

(02:43:44):
But you know, right now, in the post twenty nineteen period, um,
a sort of effect of the uprising that took places,
there is a constitutional convention that's taking place as we
speak here in Santiago, UM that's headquartered in the former
National Congress. During the dictatorship, the h Congress has moved

(02:44:07):
to the ports city of the Appraiso away from Santiago,
but in the old National Congress building is where the
new Constitution provision has taken place. And actually two nights
ago there was a marathon voting session in which a
series of social rights were adopted into the cost into
the text of the new Constitution. And these social rights included,

(02:44:27):
among other things, the right to unionization, the right to strike,
the right to collectively bargain, the right for workers via unions,
to have a say in the direction and business of
an enterprise of a business itself, to participate in management essentially.
But it also included things such as a right to

(02:44:48):
healthcare publicly funded healthcare system, the right to social security
publicly funded and it included a right to housing, which
specifically include the phrase of a right to a dignified,
adequate home, as well as a right to the city
that included the phrase that the right to the city

(02:45:09):
is for the development of a dignified life. Uh. And
so really that is kind of the epilogue UM to
to the story that we've been talking about this whole time. Now,
you know, we don't know if the constitution itself will
be adopted. Um. There's going to be an exit vote
on September four of this year in which Chileans, under
it's a mandatory vote, will vote up or down on

(02:45:32):
whether or not to adopt the new constitution. So we
can't say for certain if these rights will actually become
rights of citizenship in Chile, but as of now, those
rights are included in the text that will be voted
on in September. Yeah, and I think I think that's
a pretty good place to end it, unless you have
anything else that you want to know. I think that

(02:45:52):
that's a really you know, there's a really nice symmetry there. Um.
And you know, I stayed up are too late the
other night watching that vote. I think it went to
like two in the morning. Um, but it was you know,
it was an exciting thing to see. Um. And you know,
it is an exciting moment to be here in Chile,
especially after having to be away for two years during

(02:46:12):
during the pandemic. Yeah. Um, yeah, well, thank thank you
so much for thank you so much for talking with us. Oh,
thank you thank you so much for having me. It's
been a it's been a real pleasure, you know. And
I hope that um my ramblings are are sensible to
your listeners, um and um, that they're able to take
something from it, because I do think there's an importance

(02:46:34):
in this history especially you know, this year is the
fifty year anniversary of the Cordonos emergence, and so it's
a great time to to sort of spread knowledge of
this this moment in tril in history. Yeah, and I
guess do you have anything like that you want to plug?
Uh No, I don't have anything specifically, Um. Yeah, no,

(02:46:55):
still cranking away in the archives and working on my dissertation.
So sadly I don't have a book to plug or
anything like that. But you know, give me a couple
of years. Uh, and I a book back on when
it comes out. Yeah. Yeah. Well, in the meantime, you
two can form a large section of industrial democracy in

(02:47:20):
your workplace. Involves taking it over. Oh yeah, go go
do that. This this has been they could happen here.
You can find us on Twitter and Instagram. It happen
here pod. Actually, by the time this is dropping, we
will be a few days away from Merket. Killdoy's new
series Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff, which is rad.
You're gonna hear a lot of cool people doing cool things.

(02:47:41):
That is dropping on May Day on May one, and
after that we have we we we have another show dropping,
which is which is which is a Ghost Church about
ghost church eat things. It's It's gonna be good. It's
it's Jamie Loftus. It's Jamie loft Is doing Jamie Loftus
things about a bunch of a bunch of the sort
of like American ghost churches and people who talk to ghosts.

(02:48:02):
So yeah, go listen to that. Have fun by everyone, Hello,
welcome to it could happen here the podcast that is

(02:48:25):
my podcast Now. I'm your host, Margaret Killjoy and with
me is the Webby Award winning Sophie Lichterman as our producer,
as well as the actual hosts of the show, who
go without mentioning because I don't see any reason to
include them. Can that just be the intro to every

(02:48:46):
episode from now? This is better than our all of
our regular intros. Oh I loved that. Um yeah, so
what are we talking about today? Also on podcast, Garrison
Davis and Christopher Wong Lou. Yes. So, so today we
are we are talking about the sort of long and

(02:49:09):
incredibly tragic history of Japanese anarchism. Well, okay, actually Japanese
anarchism before World War Two, because after World War Two
was an entirely different story. And as much as I
love people in construction helmets just like beating the ship
out of cops with large sticks, uh, that story is
extremely complicated. If you want to hear it, talk more
about that story a little bit. Uh. The third part

(02:49:32):
of my Nobasi Kikishi episode has a lot of people
in construction help us with sticks. But you know this
is you know, okay, So the history of anarchism generally
is the history of tragedy, but even by by anarchist standards,
the the history of Japanese anarchism is just an absolute
welter of heartbreak and loss. Um. Out of all of

(02:49:52):
the people that we're going to talk about today, exactly
one of the non Russian anarchist is going to live
to see world the end of World War two, and
he's Korean. Every single other person is either going to
be executed by the state, assassinated, kill themselves, drink themselves
to death, so this is uh, this is this is
an extreme bleak story in a lot of ways. Good
to have one of those optimistic episodes every once in

(02:50:14):
a while. Yeah, you know, I mean I think the
gets thrown down a well. Uh, well, okay, it's it's
unclear whether anyone got thrown down away. I'm sorry, I'm
skipping ahead and I don't actually know. Well, we will,
we will get to the wells uh yeah. I also okay,

(02:50:35):
so there's a lot of Japanese anarchists and we don't
have that much time. So if you're like in a
sawa u sakataro, stand um, I'm sorry, we can't cover
all of them. Do you ever think about the history
of anarchists in Japan? That is weird is that the
beginning of the story pre dates they're actually being anarchists

(02:50:57):
in Japan, or specifically, they're being up in the anarchists. Um.
There's this huge degree of sort of like cultural exchange
and influence running between Japan and Russia by riche of
the fact that they are, you know, next to each other, um,
and especially in the seventies and eighties. This is one
of the sort of this is important again because Russia

(02:51:21):
in this period is like this is like the hotbed
of anarchism, right, like they're they're killing, they're killing those
are they're they're they're doing all the things. They're going
to the countryside there. The Russian anarchists are short of
on the move, and a lot of things the Russian
anarchists wind up like in Japan, baccoon In is there
for like he like he has some extremely complicated arrangement
who like he like sneaks on a boat and he

(02:51:43):
like gets out and he beats one of the sort
of like samurai like Beiji Restoration revolutionaries and they chat
for a bit and then he leaves. So he he
you know, but you's not. This is when he was
escaping Siberia. Yeah, well I think, yeah, he's get my Siberia.
And then he somehow convinces like the American embassy or

(02:52:04):
something to like let him on a boat to Japan.
It's it's a very weird story. It's like all things
bakun In are. But the most problem in anarchists to
spend time in Japan is uh Lev Meshnikov. Um Mashnikov
is like he's like a pretty big deal in Russian
Revolutionary circles like he's he's considered like okay, so the

(02:52:26):
big sort of like anarchists left wing moving to Japan
is the populist right. It's called the road nicks Um
and there there's two big figures in it. There's uh
Nikolai Turnachevski and uh this guy, uh Lev Menshikov, and
you know, he's Manikov like he knows everyone he knows,

(02:52:47):
like he's friends, was just like every single person and
we will get too more of his friends later. But
like he's a kind of part of bakun in Um.
He he has. He has a very similar career to
Beacun in a lot of ways, where he just sort
of like runs a especially like Eastern Europe. He's like
runs around the world being in revolutions um, which is
good work if you can get it. Yeah, yeah, it's

(02:53:07):
it's pretty exciting. And he doesn't die, which is sort
of incredible. Well, I love that for him, So he's
still around. Yes, this is very sad, you know, I
mean he look, look, this is this is the goal
of Russian cosmism. No is it actually cosmism? I have
no idea. Yeah, the cosmonaut people, yeah, yeah, yeah, they

(02:53:31):
would bring back all the dead people. Oh no, I
don't know about this. I only know a weird thing
where there was like anarchist cosmonauts in like nineteen twenties Russia. Yeah. Yeah,
so the their their whole thing was like, Okay, so
they thought that the anarchists had like been defeated in
the revolution because they were insufficiently committed to bringing the
dead back to life, and that that that, you know,

(02:53:52):
the whole thing was like they like they're there's some
the people who were involved in the Soviet like rocket programs,
and they're doing this because they want to colonize the
Moon and Mars so they can fit all of the
dead poleteria they're gonna bring back to life. Wait, are
you telling the truth to me? This is true? This
is this is I've been trying to fight for the

(02:54:13):
Anarchist Necromancer League for so long, which our slogan is
um raised the dead to fight like hell for the living.
That's that's It's incredible. But yeah, no, like the Russian cosmism,
it's a weird one cosmism. It's like a weird mix
of like like natural philosophy quote unquote, which is just

(02:54:35):
like different films or like folk magic or whatever, and
like religion and spiritual stuff. But also it's like a
predecessor to like the modern transhumanism. Um, it's an it's
an interesting little collection of ideas that was popular at
the very beginning of the twentieth century. It's it's part
of my thesis that no one normal has ever been
involved in the production of a rocket like I mean

(02:54:58):
yeast like on the so made in and then there's
just like the Nazis and it's like, oh, zero normal people.
I have no counterargument there was that because there was
the guy who did all the multi stage rocketry, the
nihilist who killed the czar, who built the bomb that
killed the Tzar. He like when I talked about this

(02:55:19):
in my podcast, probably already listened to this. You have
a podcast? WHOA, yeah, I really just I'm here. I'm
gonna plug this every like five minutes. On this episode, um,
you can learn about the bomb maker who killed the
czar and his what he brought to the world in
terms of rocketry and manned rocket travel. Anyway, please continue

(02:55:43):
on what show Margaret? Well, okay, is this podcast that
I'm recording on right now? When does it come out.
When are you listening to it, dear readers. Okay, well,
then next Monday you can listen to cool people who
did cool stuff, which is my podcast. Yeah, I'm so
good at my up. Anyway, my job is to interrupt
you with please tell me more about the cosmos and

(02:56:04):
how they relate to Japan. The Cols was actually nothing
to do with this, unfortunately, but yeah, but lev uh
lev Meshnikov like he also he like fights with Garibaldi
to reunify Italy. He's just like all over the place.
But he's an interesting guy because okay, so there's like

(02:56:25):
a lot of foreigners who go to Japan, but he
like makes Japanese friends and like learns Japanese before he
goes there, which makes him like utterly different than like
the people who are writing like Westerners who are writing
but Japan in this period, who like don't speak very
good Japanese and never leave their houses. So nothing has changed.

(02:56:48):
Yeah yeah, well like except weirdly this one guy is
doing better. Oh no, I mean nothing has changed from
now no where. No Westerners actually they just pretend to
care about Japan. Okay, yeah, it's a it's it's time.
There's actually That's one of the brunning themes of these
two episodes is like there's a lot of stuff about this,
about anarchism and about Japan just like don't change. But

(02:57:12):
you know, so one of the things that winds up
doing is he winds up spending two years teaching at
this thing called the Tokyo School of Foreign Languages. And
this this is a bunch of major impacts, one of
which is on Masnikov himself, who he becomes heavily influenced
by by the Major Restoration, which he thinks of as
like this like but he looks at it, this is

(02:57:34):
like as a revolution, like this is an anti feudal revolution.
This is the most successful social revolution of the century.
It's like he thinks that it's like destroyed the sort
of stratified class system and creates this like possibility of
like mass social mobility for commoners. And Okay, so this
is like not the best interpretation of what's going on

(02:57:55):
with with the Major Restoration. Where I mean, so the
Major Restoration sort of the field system in Japan, it
does a lot of other bad things. What is it?
Like I don't know that much about this, yea, So
maybe the audience doesn't either okay, so the major restoration
is a thing that happens where so so Japan has
been ruled by a shogun for like a long time,

(02:58:16):
and the shogun runs the Fueld system. It's very elaborate.
Everyone has at least sort of minute hard prodcasts. But
eventually there's this kind of um like that, there's there's
this sort of it's complicated. It's this kind of nationalist

(02:58:36):
movements by a bunch of um like a bunch of
the samurai clans. Who this is? This is happening in
the six season, they mobilized to overthrow like the shogunate
and basically like restore the emperor to power. The emperor
has been like a puppet head like figurehead guy for
like two years and they bring it back to power.
Because I'm a hack of a fraud and a fraud.

(02:58:58):
I'm forgetting their exact slogan. It's some it's something like
it's Revere the Emperor, and I can't remember what the
other part of the slogan is. It's very similar to
that to the Box rebellions. Looking it's it's this sort
of I mean, there's a lot of things going on here.
It's kind of a reaction to so in the in
the sixties, like Japan is sort of forcibly opened to

(02:59:19):
the world by like Comma our Paris showing up with
a bunch of like the largest gunboats anyone has ever seen. Um.
And this like this forces Japan to sort of like
abandon its isolation dispositions. And yeah, and you know, and
you get this sort of classic intellectuals you're looking at
this and they're going like, Okay, if we don't do something,

(02:59:39):
like we're gonna get colonized. And so they do. And
the thing that they do is that they do this
revolution and they overthrow um, they overthrow the shogunate. There's
all this like there's there's like a trillion anime set
in this period because there's like that, There's there's like
like there there are there are squads of samurai swordsmen
like running around like stabbing each other in Tokyo with
like kyoto and like it's it's wild, it is it

(03:00:00):
is a it is a time and and this sort
of this is what sort of consolidates the modern Japanese
nation state. Um. You know, I've talked about this in
my Kishi episodes, but like it sets off this wave
of colonialism. They like they conquer Okaido, they conquer the islands,
they do all this horrible colonialism stuff. But there's there's

(03:00:23):
it's really unclear what the revolution is actually going to
mean because like there has been a revolution, right, like
the sort of like feutal like class system has been
swept away. There's all of this sort of there's all
this this energy and the masses. There's like one of
one of the things that Meshakov finds is like he
so he gets to Japan in like the in the

(03:00:44):
eighteenth seventies um, and he's seeing like the first size
of discontentment with with the sort of the major restoration um,
which is the restoration of the emperor um. Because there's
a lot of people who look at this and they're like, oh, hey,
we're gonna we finally like defeated the sort of olig
Art class that like rules all of us. And then

(03:01:05):
there's all do olig Art class and they're like wait,
hold on. And so there's there's like there's a series
of like ex samurai rebellions. There's this whole sort of
like like he he like Mashakov literally like gets there
in the middle of an uprising, and he's just like
in this rereaes he has nobody what's going on because
the guy he'd been talking to winds up being in
the uprising, and you know, so he gets there and
but what what what he sees also is he sees upheople.

(03:01:28):
But he sees that this enormous network of like cooperative movements.
I mean, he's a bunch of mutual aid groups. He
sees like villages who are like pooling all of the
resources they can send kids to like school in the cities.
He sees like he sees the government failing to provide
services for people because there's an uprising going on, and
also the governments and so people are sort of people
taking care of each other. And this has an enormous

(03:01:50):
influence on him. Um and he starts to you know,
like the way he thinks about anarchism changes, and he sees,
like he starts to think about sort of like anarchism
is cooperation, Like mutual cooperation between people who like mutual
aid enters the sort of lexicon. And Okay, so there's
a there's a modern historian named show Kota She who

(03:02:15):
writes this book called Anarchist madernity, anarchist magernity cooperatism. Wait,
hold on, yeah, anarchist magernity cooperatism and Japanese Russian intellectual
relationship modern Japan. And he makes the argument basics, yeah,
there's there's two there there there, it's a it's a
better title than I'm reading it, because there's there's two.

(03:02:36):
There's like a heading and like a subheading straight because
I'm flound But she's making the argument that this this
is like this is actually like something that's very important
to development of Marco communism because this guy he knows everyone,
like did the anarchist geographer, like at least Rick LuSE.
I can't pronounce his name. I think it's lu Yeah,

(03:02:56):
I think so, but I can't not with a gun
to my head, I'm not sure. Yeah. Yeah, Like their
roommates like they're like they're like they lived together for
like a while, and like he he he writes the
Japan entry and like the encyclopedia, he's friends with Kropotkin.
And after after his his sort of like thoughts starts
to change about mutual aid, you start to see a
lot of the same stuff, like you know, like this

(03:03:18):
is like he's he's there before Karpokin writes mutual Aid,
and then you see you see all the sort of
mutual aid stuff popping up Kropotkin, And you know, I
don't know how seriously to take the argument that like
you're sort of seeing like that that a lot of
this theory is sort of a rebound of reflection of
what they were seeing in Japanese society. But it's interesting,
and I think I should mention it because I don't know,

(03:03:39):
like there's there's this whole sort of intellectual sphere of
people who were like associated with anarchistic the ever thing
that happens in this period is that like, um, so
there's a bunch of like Mashnikov like has a bunch
of friends in Russia who all got arrested because they
were in like terrorist groups, and he's able to get

(03:03:59):
like a whole bunch of these people too, Like he's
able to get them like exiled, and their exile is
they go to Japan, they teach with him, and so
suddenly there's like there's like a bunch of people who
are now like these people, these populists are like writing
stories about like the stuff they were doing, and like
all the people who are still fighting in Russia. So

(03:04:20):
there's suddenly there's all these people who are like reading
about the Russian populists uh in Japan and and you know,
and this is there's there's this kind of like anarchist
cultural sphere that exists in Japan, like before there's anarchists,
um like EXAs yeah, yeah for Japan as anarchist, they'll

(03:04:40):
be like one like yeah, there's like a couple of
Russian anarchists and like yeah, but like Mashikov leaves at
one of the other big thing with this is Tolstoy,
who is like Tolstoy in like nineties like early nights,
He's like he's the like he I think he's like
the most translated author like on Earth in Japan. And

(03:05:03):
it's they're not just reading his literary work, they're reading
his like theology is political work, which is important because
Tolstoy is like a Christian and reco pacifist right, and
and this influences this. There's this kind of like there's
there's a lot of sort of like left wing anti
imperial strains of Christianity that pop up in Japan. And
this is one of the reasons for US because everyone's
reading Tolstoy, and so you get the seeds of this

(03:05:26):
anarchist movements that eventually sprout into a man named god.
This guy's name is actually hard Cotu ku SHOOSI. I'm
butchering the last part of it. I'm sorry. My Japanese
does not extend to this many years and eyes in
a row. But kotakudak he's an interesting god because so

(03:05:51):
he hasn't so he has like a whole career before
it becomes an anarchist. He's he's like he's a very
prep mint journalist, intellectual, Like he writes a newspaper. It's
very famous. Everyone reads it, and he's the heir apparent
to this other like very famous sort of liberal journalist
who again, because Lev Meshnikov knows literally everyone was like
a friend of Left Meshnikov. I don't. He knows every

(03:06:14):
single person on earth. It's incredible, you know that rules
you know, unless he ever turned if you ever snitched
to be terrible apparently never did so yeah, yeah, I
mean it's still around, so I mean he still could snitch.
He's still around. The last the chance, Oh, I guess
everyone he was snitched on his dead so um makes

(03:06:37):
it harder the epic Skipilaria area. Yeah. So Kodaku is
like he's kind of like a standard liberal, but he
gets involved with with the anti war movements. Um, specifically
this this is the the anti uh well is it
does anti a lot of wars because the jet Japan
is fighting an enormous series of wars and like the
early nine hundreds, Um, yeah, they kicked Russia's as at

(03:06:57):
that point. Yeah, yeah, fight uh Japan, They fight Japans. Sorry,
they fight China. Yeah, and do you do you know
who else is fighting China? I don't know. I'm afraid
to know. The products and service assist the show. Are
we supported by American nationalism? Apparently? Yes? Question mark, And

(03:07:21):
we're back with the first rush with the first actual
Japanese anarchist. So in the neteen hundred Cutko writes this
book called Imperialism Monster of the twentieth Century, which is
like good yeah, yeah, and this certificate for a number
of reasons, one of which is it like this is

(03:07:43):
one of the first major like books about imperialism. Like
there there are some other Western writers who stuff like
predates this, but like this is not hter. This is
before Lenin has written about imperialism. This is before like Hobson,
this is before Luxembourg, and I'm just gonna read it
a little bit from it because it rules. So this
is from the first section. It's called imperialism a wildfire

(03:08:04):
in an open field. Imperialism spreads like a wildfire in
an open field. All nations bow down to worship this
new god, sing hymns to praise it, and have created
a cult to pay to pay it adoration. Look at
the world that surrounds us. In England's both governments and
citizens have become fervent acolytes of imperialism. In Germany, the

(03:08:26):
war loving emperor never loses a chance to extol its virtues.
As for Russia, the regime has long practiced to policy
of imperialism. France, Austria, and Italy are all delighted to
join the fray. Even a young country like the United
States has recently shown its eagerness to master this new skill.
And finally, this trend has reached Japan. Ever since our
great victory in the Cio Japanese War, Japanese of all

(03:08:47):
classes burned with fervor to join the race for an empire.
Like a wild horse freed from its harness. So you know,
the one thing that he got incorrect, as as I
understand by spending a lot of time on Twitter, is
that actually only the United States is imperialist and any
actions especially by Russia. I was very confused that he
included Russia as the I can't finish the sentence of

(03:09:08):
the straight face, Um what Russia? Also, how could it
be imperialism if Lenin hadn't yet defined the term for us?
This is okay, this is the whole thing. Okay. So
so Kutko gets like a lot of ship from this
book because for like from later on, having his leftis
because like he's insufficiently materialist. It's like, yeah, he is
mostly just talking, like the books, mostly about like how

(03:09:28):
patriotism and nationalism like create this stuff. It doesn't look
at economics much. But like, okay, there's a whole problem here,
which is that if you try to apply Lenin's definition
of imperialism to Japan, it doesn't work because like, like
what would Japan is invading China? They have like I
think it's like fifty total factories. Yeah, like that the
everything is completely backwards, Like it's like yeah, and like

(03:09:53):
you know, it's like like like Lennon's imperialism is supposed
to be like the highest stage of capitalism, but then
you go to Japan, Japan's like barely started the position
to capitalism, like if Lettin's imperialism is supposed to be
about like debt exports, right, but Japan is just conquering
countries while they're just literally like borrowing massively from whether
states of funder industrialzations. Everything does nothing, None of it works,

(03:10:15):
and Kodaku gets like again he has he has like
a lot of ship for this, but it's like no,
she's right, like letting is letting is wrong. Lettings analysis,
if you try to apply in Japan, does not work,
and Kodas does so yeah, and you know, Kudako, I
think like he's keyed into things that the Marxists aren't,

(03:10:39):
but like specifically about like about the power of nationalism,
because you know, I mean like obviously if you if
you go a bit later, it's like, well, all of
these people who are like, oh, imperialism is the highest
age of capitalism, and then all of their parties vote
to go to war with each other in War one,
like you know, okay, Cutico I think like gets this
because his relationship with socialists an NTI imperialism are like

(03:11:00):
backward from the Marxist right where the Marxists arrived at
engine imperialism, like from their Marxism. But Kutko like becomes
a socialist because he sees it as a way to
stop wars. Like that's like his big thing is he's
in the antiwar move when he want he's wars to stop.
And that's the right direction to do. Ship. You should
do ship because like you don't pick the label because

(03:11:21):
what's cool. You pick You figure out what you believe,
and then you pick the label that fits what you believe,
and so of the other way around. You know, yeah,
and and you know it means that he's less sort
of like he's less dogmatic than like his successors, because
you know, I mean because because he's he's working off

(03:11:42):
of his actual principles versus sort of like this like
dictation stuff, and I mean he's he's he in the
you know, three, he publishes the Ess of Socialism, which
is like this is like the first like socialist like
book written by Japanese person. It's like one of the
I think there's maybe like one or two other ones
that are before this is this is like the first
big one and he he he's also like he's involved
in founding the Japanese Socialist Party and then he gets

(03:12:04):
like arrested and sent to the US and something happens
when he's into you. I don't know, there's I've seen
like sis conflicting accounts, like I've seen accounts to say
he joins he joins the i w W. I I
don't know. I've seen other people said he lived, he
lived in a commune, like he definitely read gropocket, he
becomes an anarchist, let's deciety, he did all of these things. Yeah,
lived in a commune and tried to organize the communy

(03:12:25):
with the i w W. But you know, I mean
he this guy is enormously influential in history of Japanese left.
Like he's the guy with when he comes back and
act you know six, He's the guy who introduced the
concept of the general strike Japan. Like he's the first
guy to write about it. He's very cool. He he
also like, yeah, you know, he starts pushing this and
started this. He starts pushing anarchism in direct action as

(03:12:47):
like instead of like doing proliamentary stuff, and he translates
like Corpocket's work in the Japanese. He translates the like
the comedy's manifesto. He's his labor organizing. He's sort of
like all over the place, and you know, like labor
and the ant one movement are like two of the
big currents are proucing anarchists. But the the other like
big current that's making anarchists this period is feminism. Because okay,

(03:13:10):
so I stop me if this isn't any way surprising,
but the late eighteen hunters and early neteen hunters are
not a time to be a woman in Japan. Really. Yeah,
it's not a good time like anywhere, but it's not
not even now. It's not the best. Yeah, I mean
I will be improved. I will say it's it's it's
better than this. This is like sure, like the major

(03:13:36):
regime is sort of like consultating self is as just
consultating itself. It gets like progressively more like patriarchal, misogynist.
I'm gonna I'm gonna read from the book Reflections on
the Way to the Gallows, which is this It's a
great book. It's it's an awesome collection of yeah, well
so that that's uh God, I forget one of the

(03:13:58):
Japanese anarchists whose about to die, Like that's the title
of like a piece that she wrote. Um, and they
this book is like a collection of of Japanese feminist writings,
mostly from people who get killed by the state, because
that's what happens when your feminist Japan in this period. Um.
Oh yeah, it's bad. Okay, So I'm gonna read a
quote from this. In eight two, the government forbid women

(03:14:19):
to make political speeches, and in eighteen ninety made it
illegal for women to participate in political activities whatsoever. Women
were forbidden to even listen to political speeches. The Police
Security Regulations of reinforced these strictures. Article five of the
regulations prohibited women from forming any political organization whatsoever. Jesus. Yeah,

(03:14:41):
it's like that's like a level of restriction that like
I'm not sure I've ever seen like that explicit level
of no, you can't do this. Yeah, I feel like
it's usually implicit in a lot of Western rays. And
then also like one of the things that really strikes
sticks out to my about that is that I'm so
used to thinking about I think people tend to think

(03:15:03):
about like this like linear progress model, where like you
go back really far, like all women and all other
oppressed categories had it terrible and then it just slowly
gets better or whatever. But if they're passing these laws
in nine hundred, there's an implicit it was a little
better before. Yeah, yeah, it's very specifically gets worse on them.
Like so one of the things with the eighteen nine

(03:15:25):
legal coaches that didn't like it literally just legally enshrines
like patriarch control the households and this this is this
is a massive reactionary shift in in serve of jeoparye
like domestic and political culture like this, like that that
kind of patriarchal control the household was like a thing
in some Samurai families, but like it wasn't a thing
for there's a huge number of popular classes like just

(03:15:46):
that didn't exist and they just legislated into existence. And
like you know, I mean like the things that the
things that they're applying here, like women need consent of
their father to marry. Um is for another quote for
the book what are the provision has held that quote
cripples and disabled persons and wives cannot undertake any legal action.

(03:16:06):
Fucking he huh. Yeah. So this is this is this
is an incredibly reactionary state. And there's also like there's
a lot of sex trafficking going on, like like actual
like there's a lot of people just being grabbed off
the street. Um, it's a it's a it is a disaster,
and it is into this patriarchal mess that like several
generations of Japanese and ARCA feminists step into. Um. The

(03:16:28):
most famous of the first round is Kano Sugako, who's
she she's a socialist author who conversed to She originally
social listen. She conversed anarchism, which is like a thing
that happens a lot in this period. And she she's
working as a journalist and you know she she's she's
like she's a very sort of controversial figure in the
government like hates her. So she meets Kotuku and they

(03:16:51):
have an affair. And this is like one of the
other things that keeps happening here is there's a lot
of like free love stuff going around the Japanese anarchist
circle at this time. And this this has two conseq
which is one is a lot of men use it
to be really shitty and means there was like there
is a again, this is this is this is this
is the big like nothing has ever changed in the
anchist movement. There are so many relationship drama things nothing.

(03:17:14):
There are so many times this last circle like like
they are two different times when the most famous Japanese
anchist man and the most famous Japanese ancists women wind
up in a relationship. Uh it ends with it with
them explaining the movement and then both dying in prison.
Like this happens twice. Exact sequence happens twice. It's nuts,

(03:17:38):
like they're they're just they're just doing polyquel ship Like it's, oh,
they just need better mediators. Yeah, well, and I mean
this is this is the thing with like the Japanese
like the Japanese anchist movement like has a huge feminist wing,
but like the men still suck, like you just keep

(03:17:58):
being bad and so you know what. The over thing
about this is that Kono Sugako is like enormously more
militant than like almost every other any other anarchists that's
alive in Japan at this point. And so in the
nineteen ten she gets involved with the plan to assassinate
the emperor Um and this becomes known as the high
Treason incidents, and the state like gets wind of this.

(03:18:21):
They arrest her, they arrest uh Go Taku, and they
arrest like twenty two other two yeah, twenty two other anarchists. Um.
Now like five of these people are like even tangentially
involved in this plot, um, but they this is okay,

(03:18:43):
So I can't say that that the Japanese government only
does this to anarchist because they do this a fascist
like once. But like they do this thing where okay,
So they have a bunch of people that they want
to execute, right, So they find one person who's like
an ideological figure and they're like, okay, you're now in
the middle of this and you're the link between like
this group and this other group want to kill. This

(03:19:04):
other group want to kill this other group want to
kill And so they convict uh like jo Um and
uh Ku like they they all get convicted and they
all get executed. Yeah, And so this case is also
interesting because there's a bunch of people who the state
like wanted to kill but they couldn't because they'd already arrested.

(03:19:25):
They'd already they like, this is like two years after
like a mass arrest of like half of the Japanese
nargist movement. And so they have all these people who
are in prison, and it's like even by like the
standards of the Japanese state, it's like, Okay, how are
we going to convict all of these people who have
been in prison for two years of trying to of
like being a part of this plot to kill the
emperor that was like organized outside of the jail. And

(03:19:48):
so this this is the thing that saves like a
huge portion of the Japanese anarchist movements, that saves it
from literally so like this the Hydragenon incident kills like
most of the famous anarchist of Japan, but it leaves
like like a couple alive. And that's why they're alive
because they were all in prison. God, wait, how are
they going to kill the emperor? The plant didn't get

(03:20:10):
very far. I think they were trying to use a bomb,
but the police got wind of it very very early,
not classes so that they never really got much like
past the planning stage. Um, this is a shame. Yeah yeah,
And do you know what else never gets very far
plass past the planning stage when they're trying to assassinate

(03:20:31):
the emperor of Japan. Is it the ads because they
don't know how to do direct action because they're too
in mestion in capitalism? That is, that is actually exactly
what we were talking about. Margaret, thank you so much,
and we're back. I was genuinely trying to see if
I could like think of a of a company that

(03:20:53):
had like tried to kill the Japanese emperor, and I
couldn't think of one. And I was like, hmmm, this
says something about society. This does. This is a real,
real solid critique we have here. I really hope that
ten years from now this all seems very dated. You're like,
of course someone's major company has tried to never mind,

(03:21:14):
one can dream so kinda. Sugaku is dead, Kotaku is
also dead, and this this means that it's time for
sort of like another generation of of anarchists to try
to fill in the gaps. So they're executed. Yeah, yeah,
they're dead, Like they just die and they kill, they kill,
they kill like twenty two of the anarchists or something.

(03:21:36):
And I mean this is a this is a huge purge. Mean,
they don't wind up executing just like there's just like
a like a sympathetic like Buddhist priest. It's executed. Um,
I when is this? This is nice and eleven sorry, yeah,
this is nice un eleven um and actually there's nothing
to think about this kind of Sku becomes the first

(03:21:58):
woman ever executed by the happening state. She will not
be the last, like oh boy, um feminist, yeah, I
mean equal rights, equal fights. There's another like very influential
market feminist who's emergence slightly after, like just like in

(03:22:22):
like nineteen four nine is each on no way. She's
an egoist anarchist who eventually last, finally, finally we bring
it up. That's all I have to say about. That's
like almost all I had to She she she takes
over the editorial position of this, uh, this magazine called
Blue Stocking Magazine, which is like Japan's and I think

(03:22:44):
it's it's like this is like the most important feminist
magazine in Japan, and she takes over the editorial staff
about it. And her work is really interesting in a
lot of ways because it just it just straight up
is contemporary feminism in a way that like a lot
of the stuff in this period isn't like if if
you go and read the arguments she's having, she's arguing

(03:23:04):
that sex works should be legal and that everyone should
be should be able to get abortions because women should
have autonomy over their bodies. Yeah, it's like, yeah, this
is this is not going to end well for her,
but you know what, it doesn't end well for any
of us in a long enough timeline. You know, like

(03:23:25):
all that matters is the time of what we do.
At this time, we are gularly bad. Okay, fine, yeah,
so yeah, I think so she's able to do this
for like a year, and the Japanese state looks at this,
it is like absolutely not and shust the magazine down. Um,
so she she gets forced to move on to other things.
And the other thing she moved on she moves on

(03:23:46):
to is being extremely heavily involved in the free love
movement of course. Yeah yeah, and and but also, and
this is the thing that's that's interesting about the sort
of periodge of Japanese anarchism is that like the egoists
are all also Nicholas yeah yeah, yeah, yeah yeah yeah.
And she's so she she's like heavily involved in labor organizing,

(03:24:06):
and this is how she comes into contact with her partner,
who she's like cheating on her imprisoned husband, who will
later form the Japanese Communist Party. That's a lot of
stuff happening. There's there, there's so much, there's so much beef.
It's incredible. There's there's this like we haven't even gotten

(03:24:29):
to the wild part of this relationship yet, okay, which
is so so okay. So she she comes in contact
with her partner or person who would become her partner,
Osaki Sakai, who is like dating another very famous Japanese
arca feminist, who she stabs him in the neck over
the fact that she's in multiple relationships at once. So
this isn't really a free from her point, Yeah, this

(03:24:50):
is this is the thing that keeps happening with free
love of this period. It's like you gotta like, you
gotta lay down, you gotta make sure everyone's okay with everything.
They should have seemed to in theory, but in practice
they sure, yeah, sure do fall apart? Huh yeah? And
this two divides the Japanese anity. But does she win,
did she succeed, did she kill him or did he survive?

(03:25:11):
That Okay, yeah, I'm just I have there's a special
place in my heart for split slit throats of patriarchal man. Anyway,
So most like Kai is also very heavily evolving labor organizing,
and he he's one of the guys who like turns

(03:25:32):
anarchists labor into like a serious political force, which is
maybe it's good that they survived. Yeah, like it's probably
net good. But all of the guys in this story
like suck except do I haven't except here? What about
the Korean guy? Who? Um oh yeah, we get to him. Yeah,

(03:25:55):
he's he's kind of like I think he's actually fine. Yeah,
I think maybe the end this story gets weird. Yeah
we'll we'll we'll get to them in a second. Um.
But yeah, So Saya Sakai has like he has he
has this like fusion of like egoism and syndicalism, where
like the individual ego will be liberated through collective action,
but the goal of the workers movement is not to
just like end poverty, it's to like liberate the individual

(03:26:17):
and give themselves developments. And he's also this like incredibly
fierce like like one of his big thing is that
like he does not want intellectuals anywhere you're the workers
movement does absolutely not. Yeah, and this is because like
again he's been around for ages, Like he becomes an
anarchist around the time when Um Kotaku doesn't like that's

(03:26:38):
no six, So he's been like arounded. He's one of
the guys who survives the high Trees in the incident
because he was already in prison. Okay, all right, and
so he like he's one of the people who like
keeps the sort of flame of anarchism alive after like
their fashion nineteen eleven. But unfortunately for him Um and
for eacho, no way, they get caught up in the
Canto earthquake, of which is this like this earthquake between

(03:27:00):
Yokohama and Tokyo alone kills two hundred thousand people. It
is like it is like it is one of the
worst like natural disasters. It's it's really bad and in
immediately gets worse. The state wouldn't use a natural disaster
to try and further its aims through extra legal means. Yeah,

(03:27:20):
So okay, I'm gonna start with one of the ways
that the genocide of Korean people in Japan at this
time starts is so there's a bunch of Korean workers
in a long turre union that's been organized by this
builit in like left his union guy named Yamaguchi Saka
and okay, so like they're in this long shore union.

(03:27:41):
There's this disaster. They start doing mul a. They start
going out. They started taking care of so if I
started giving people food. But you know, they're they're like
waving red flags and stuff, and the Japanese police lose
their minds and are like, oh my god, there the
jet the Koreans are doing socialism and they just start
killing them and they there's this whole thing about like

(03:28:02):
there's these rumors started like Koreans are raping Japanese women
and it turns into this thing about like looting, and
then like Korean malcontents are supposed to be like overrunning
police stations and the lynch mobs. The lists are mostly
targeting Koreans, but they're also tart, like if you're Chinese,
if you're from Baku Islands, like they're killing you. Two um,
they kill two thousand Koreans in Tokyo and another two

(03:28:23):
thousand in Yokohama, and like two thousand Koreans in Yokohama,
that is half the Korean population of the city. And
these people die like horribly, like because it's not like
so that the polices are actively hunting them down. Like
the entirety of Japanese society like remembers that they really
like killing people and they really like fighting, and like

(03:28:46):
you have people like taking their like ceremonial swords from
like their ancestors who are in the major revolution, Like
they're taking their katanas going industry and murdering people with them,
like people just like have fish hooks and they're just
murdering people in the street. And this goes on for
like this is on for days, and one of the
things that happens in this is um, well, okay, so
the one of the other things happens in this period

(03:29:08):
that the Javits government just starts like arresting random left
iss and executing them. Yeah, and that's what was supposed
to happen to know to Echo no A and Osaka Sakai.
But they get arrested by squad and military police led
by mashachikom Akasu who just she just murders them. Um.

(03:29:30):
There's like conflicting stories of how this happened. I there's
there's one version of it where like he kills them
and like their six year old nephew and throws their
bodies out a well. There's another version of it where
they get strangled and that he strangles have been prison
and this is like a huge outrage, but it's not
huge at range because he murdered them as a huge
outrage because he's supposed to wait for the trial. H

(03:29:51):
I mean, and yeah, And this is one of the
things that like this is this is part of how
like fascism comes to Japan, is that like he becomes
a hero for the fascist right, Like he goes to
prison for ten years supposedly, but he only serves three
and then he gets out. He becomes a hero, and
then he becomes basically the head of like the sort
of fascist secret police in the like Maenturian puppet state.

(03:30:15):
But on the upside, he when would Japan loses to war,
he kills himself. So when I with the story I
had heard was that the Throne in the Well story,
and I remember it. It's stuck with me so much
because the first time I met anarchists from Japan, they
gave me a zine and it was like Japanese anarchist martyrs,

(03:30:35):
you know, like the martyrs of our movement or whatever.
And I was like looking through it and we're all
of these children, and it just like really emotionally affected
me that I was like, oh, y'all's martyrs include all
of these like literally not like like literal like like
six year olds and stuff, because you know they came
and killed not just the grown up anarchists, but the

(03:30:57):
baby anarchists or whatever as well. Um, I know that
this has happened lots of places, but it just it
really stuck with me. So whether it's true or not,
the story I heard was this story about the well,
and then it's stuck with me. Yeah, I mean, like
the level of repression in Japan, like it's it's unlike

(03:31:21):
anything I've ever seen that's not in a country that's
literally in the middle of the civil war, like they
just they just like murder people like constantly. Yeah. And
then this is one of the other things, like one
of the things that starts the right wing like turn
in Japanese society is when is when the earth work
happens and the government is like like they're like the

(03:31:41):
police are being like, it's the Koreans. You need to
go fight the Koreans, and so they do and like
I mean yeah, like wait, they like blame the earthquake
on the Koreans. Yeah, well, so everything is there's this fire,
the fire kills like sixty people, like it it consumes
they're like they're they're the urban core of uh, what's
the name of that city, h the urban core of

(03:32:05):
Yokohama just goes up in flames, like six people burned
to death, and that's the government needs some explanation for. Yeah,
it's horrible, but like the governments are explation for it.
They're like, oh, we'll blame the Koreans. And then suddenly
all of these people are just like like the whole
of Japanese society just goes into this total mobilization like
kill mode thing and they just murder enormous numbers of

(03:32:26):
people and this and like that this has this enormous
sort of like like cultural affection, shifting people back to
the right and shifting people back towards militarism because now
they've like you know, like they've they've tasted blood, they've
like they've gotten this sort of sense of it yeah,
it is brutal um and before we go, we're gonna
kill off one more anarchist the team. Can we kill

(03:32:47):
off the other team instead? Unfortunately, no, none of them
die in this story. It's the worst. All of the
assassination attempts fail. It's so sad. Yeah, I'm sorry sight
me what I happened. I forgot how depressing this because
I was I was remembering part two of this, which
is just like absolutely hilarious, kind of pointless like ideological

(03:33:08):
battle over like things that are kind of dumb, and
then I forgot about the first part of the story,
which is everyone gets executed. So the last person who
we're talking about he gets executed is is Fumiko Konako.
Who is Fumokko? So she she she's a nihilist anarchist,
but she's different from like everyone else we've talked about
today so far because when she's a kid, she gets

(03:33:29):
sent to live in Japanese occupied Korea, and so she
goes there and she gets like horribly abused by her family,
which leads to become like leaves of her becoming a nihilist,
but it means to like, okay, so like like a
lot of the anarchists like in Japan talk a big
game again about anti like imperialism, right, and like they
will do things like yeah, like they will go fight
police to try to stop a war for happening, but

(03:33:51):
they don't really talk to people in Korea very much.
And Fumio Kanico was like the exception to that because
you know, she lived there for a long time. Um
and she she winds up marrying pack Yol, who is
a very influential Korean anarchist, and they they do a
bunch of organizing the specifically like that their their thing is.

(03:34:11):
They're trying to like get there, trying to enter the
Japanese occupation, and you know they're they're doing great work.
And then unfortunately, after the earthquake, Uh, she and pak
Yo are and uh, stop me if you've heard this
one before, they are sentenced to death for a supposed
plot to kill the emperor. Wait wait now, yeah, we
already did this part. You're just repeating, Yeah, yeah, they

(03:34:33):
do it again. This is the second time. Like they
just keep doing this and this one it's unclear if
there was actually a plot, and if there was a plot,
it's unclear to what extent form can code was like
involved with it. But while she's gonna get arrogated, she's like,
oh yeah, no, Like I hate the Emperor. I was
absolutely involved in a plot to kill him, Like I
was making a bomb to kill him. Uh. Also, I'm

(03:34:54):
an anarchist. And here's like an incredibly detailed sketch of
like all of the oppression in Japanese society. But I'm
just gonna tell you, like the person she's like the
court examiner, who's like and and you know, there's there's
anything that happens where she and Pacuole are like are
handed pardons as like the sort of like mercy of
the Emperor thing, and paciol like takes it but go

(03:35:15):
kind of co like they hander the paper and she
chears it to shreds in front of them. And it's
so embarrassing that like the record of what happened is
like sealed until after World War Two because it was
a big like, um, it was like a big media scandal,
all of the stuff with them being arrested, right, And
I'm basically I don't actually know more, but I watched

(03:35:35):
a movie once. There's a great movie about this called
Anarchists from Colony. This part of it. Yeah yeah, and
she yeah, and like yeah, it's just the whole thing,
and like that. The government also kind of doesn't want
to assassinate them because it looks really bad that. I mean,
they've they've they've picked, they've they've arrested to random people
who like have done nothing, and they're just gonna kill them.

(03:35:56):
But for mechanicals like no, like, I believe in the
things that I believe in, and I will literally like
tear up this parted and die for it. And so
she tears out the pardon and so she goes to prison,
and she lives long enough to write like the greatest
entry in the in the genre of an archi feminist
a Japanese narchi feminist prison memoirs, which is an entire genre.

(03:36:17):
There's like multiple books because it keeps happening and these
people get arrested and set the prison. It's called the
Prison Memoirs of a Japanese Woman. It's great, everyone should
go read it. It's it's also extremely depressing because her
life sucks, but yeah, it's it's it's good. Um. Yeah.
And so now having killed off the leading intellectuals of

(03:36:39):
anarchism again for the second time in a generation. You
would think that this would this would kill the movement,
like I think, I think like movements like if if
you kill they're leading intellectuals, like all of them, like
twice in like twelve years, like the movement collapses. Yeah. That,

(03:37:01):
but at the very beginning there was the guy who
said keep the intellectuals away from the labor organizing. Maybe
he is right, well, but this, this is this. Yeah.
The incredible thing about this is no, it doesn't it
doesn't kill them. They keep going like and they have
they have one last glorious, glorious and absolutely baffling hurrah.
Okay of like in fighting, extremely weird and funny in fighting.

(03:37:25):
So yeah, that that's what we're gonna be talking about
next episode. All right, Yeah, is it time for the
plug of the plug? Yes? Oh oh, Margaret you who
have a new podcast about that? It's on this very network,
Cool Zone Media, on this very network. I have my
own podcast. Is it called cool People Who Did Cool

(03:37:47):
Stuff and Doesn't Believe? So? Does it come out on
May second? And is it produced by the webby Award
winning Sophie lie German? Uh? Perhaps? And do episodes drop
every Monday and Wednesday? I think they do. Uh, that
is super, super exciting. And you can find that wherever

(03:38:09):
you get your podcasts, remember quickly anywhere you get them,
Like if there's a peddler on the corner who sells
you podcasts, your pain, get your podcast, get your podcast.
It's half off today to two for one exactly. And
where and where can people follow you on the interwebs? Uh? Well,

(03:38:34):
for now, you can follow me on Twitter before the
mass exodus h at Magpie killed Roy. And you can
follow me on Instagram, which we've all known for a
very long time is owned by evil people, and that
is Magpie. No, Margaret killed Roy because I wasn't clever
enough to get my own name in both places. I

(03:38:54):
don't know why I'm explaining this to you, but you
can follow me on social media and that's where I am,
and I post pictures of my dog that keeps barking
in the background while I'm trying to record this episode.
But but if you, if you follow Margaret, you'll see
her dog and you'll understand that it is worth it
because he is handsome, very nice and agrees. Well, I'm

(03:39:17):
very excited to start listening to cp w DC as
just the best. Uh is that the episode episode? I

(03:39:50):
guess I'm starting this one. Hi, welcome to take it
happened here. It's a show. If you're listening to this episode,
you probably listen to the last one. You know what
it's about. Yeah, please do don't start. I mean, I
guess you could start with this one because this one
is sort of wildly different than the last one. But
this one we're rewriting it so they all survive. Yeah,

(03:40:13):
I mean, I don't. No one gets executed this episode. Yes,
that is that is a win. And the cosmists come,
the Russian Cosmist come, and they resurrect at least Canikofumico um,
the rest, give or take whatever. Maybe the children could
be resurrected. That's how I would prioritize it in that order.

(03:40:34):
That makes sense. Yeah. Um. And that voice you're hearing
is Margaret Killjoy, host of Cool, host of cpw DCS
Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff Cool Medio podcast that
is launching its first episode on May second, and episodes
are every Monday and Wednesday. I did it? Okay? Who?

(03:40:55):
That's true? All the things are true, except the cosmos
part that the cosmists I don't know. Maybe maybe maybe
they'll still pull it off as as if yet, so
we're gonna go back a little bit. Um. We ended
last episode with everyone sort of dead. Um. But the

(03:41:16):
reason that also didn't wipe out the the anarchist movement
was that there's that does another sort of wing of it,
and the other wing of it is in in nineteen eighteen,
labor movement in Japan re emerges, and it re emerges
because there's the war, like Japan fights to over one,
and there's just like mass inflation and deprivation, and so
even though striking is like unbelievably illegal, people do it

(03:41:38):
anyways because the underdative is just starving to death. And
so there's this reformist trade union that eventually becomes Japanese
Confederation of Labor that swells and numbers to about thirty
thousand people, and actually much like thirty thousand people is
like it doesn't sound like that big for a union.
I think this is the biggest any union is going
to get in this period. I think this might get

(03:42:00):
slightly bigger than that, but like, yeah, most of the
unions don't crack twenty k because the size of the
Japanese industrial working class isn't that big, and also the
amount of oppression is unbelievable. But you know, having having
thirty people in your union means that your union is
now the site of Japanese intra left conflict, which is wonderful.

(03:42:26):
People there is actually like people up, Yeah, it's great.
There's like, you know, there's a period where everyone kind
of gets along, like like all of there was like
everyone of the Japanese Left knows each other, like all
they're all dating each other, like if this is true,
Like you know, we've been talking about all the interest
dating each other, but the Antics and the Communists are
all dating each other, like the Reformists are also dating
each other. Like they're all sort of like everyone knows

(03:42:48):
each other, and for like a bit they're sort of
able to get along all right. But with with with
the the Japanese Confederation of Labor. This last for like
one year, and the anarchists and the Bolsheviks has split
over the question of the USSR. After the Anarchists published
like Emma Goldman writing about how it's bad actually, and

(03:43:11):
suddenly these two factions are like, yeah, these actutions are
like fighting tooth and nail for control of like the
entire left, because like these these groups are like the anarchists,
the communists are in every social movement, like they're they're
in there in labor, they're in the feminist movements, they're
in this movement. They're like we haven't really talked about,
but it is going on the background of all of this,
which is the burak Kuman liberation movement on the burk

(03:43:32):
Kuman or this like this like hereditary class. I'm pronouncing
that extremely badly and I apologize um, but the hereditary
class and like the old fuel system, which is like
technically abolished in the Lady two hundreds, but like discrimination
against them continues. It's it's very similar to like like
the untouchable like touchables in India. And so they have
this sort of movements and the anarchists back it, and

(03:43:54):
the communists like waffle on it because the Bolsheviks it
tastes like a while before they're like no, no, no,
We're we're fully backing this now. And so yeah, I
mean that gets wrapped up in this this giant battle
for the control of the left, and the battle for
the control of the left leads to like one of
history's most common alliances, which is Bolsheviks allying with reformists

(03:44:16):
who like also favor like centralized control to fight the
anarchists who don't want centralized control. Yeah, there there are
many new things, yea, in the labor movement. This this
plays out in this battle over like where power is
supposed to be in a union confederation. So you know,
the question basically is it supposed to be in the

(03:44:37):
federation bureaucracy like the people are like the sort of
high level of the bureacracy itself, or is it supposed
to be in the unions who are like the part
of this federation. And and this has real consequences, you know,
like it a lot of sort of centralized union federations,
like the central union bureacracy that the people who decide
if you can strike or not mhm. And you know,
this is extremely useful to both reformings bureaucrats who want

(03:44:58):
to make sure nobody goes on strike because have their
deal with the capitalists and they don't want to refolution happen.
And it's also very useful for the Bolsheviks who want
to make sure they can purge anyone who they don't
like and also want to make sure. The Union movement
is just like an extension of their politics. And so
there's this huge battle and it ends with basically like
both the Bolsheviks and the reformists pull out of the Union. Whoa,

(03:45:19):
so the anarchists win. Oh yes, sort of, well they victory.
There's nothing. Yeah, well it's not. There's nothing. So like
twenty thou members go with the reformists, like twelve thousand
go with the Bolsheviks, about eight thousand go with the anarchists.
So it's not the best, but they rebuild and and
into this phrase steps arguably Japan's greatest anarchist theorists of

(03:45:44):
this period, Hottest Shoes. Oh and this guy is a character,
like he's he's he's barely known in Japan. I mean
there was a sort of like renaissance in how to
shoeso scholarship when this one guy named John Krupp wrote
this book called Hottes SHOESO How does Shoes? In Pure
Anarchism and into Wards Japan, which is a mouthful of
a title, But I'm just gonna keep plugging this because

(03:46:04):
like this is the book that made me an anarchist.
Like this is like I checked this book out from
my library and I read it and I was like,
oh my god, I'm an anarchist now. So yeah, he
has he has like A because she has a wild story.
Um he's born in He's born in Japan in December
six and he sort of like bounces around like different

(03:46:25):
manual labor jobs in Tokyo, and like at one point
he wants to be like A. He tries to be
like I don't know if it's long trou he wants
to be like a sailor. So he gets on a
boat and he's going to be a sailor and then
he after like one sale ride to Taiwan, he immediately
decides he doesn't want to be a sailor anymore. So
he just gets off the boat and leaves and doesn't
come back. I feel like that's what I would do

(03:46:46):
if I decided, Oh yeah, like that job, especially like
the nineteen like twenties, that jobs, he's awful. Yeah, You're like,
I want adventure, and then you're like, oh, adventure means
bad things happen. It's like maybe I I I guess
I understand why all these people are anarchists, because like
that is a terrible job. But yeah, so she's so

(03:47:09):
winds up sort of just like wandering around Taiwan. And
one of the things that happens when he's wanting aroun Taiwan,
by the way, is a Japanese colony at this point,
um okay. And while he's wandering around Taiwan, he becomes
a Christian and he like goes to school, it's like
a theologian, but he drops out, but then he somehow
still becomes a pastor because I don't know, this guy's
career is wild. No, she's always not like a noble pastor.

(03:47:33):
He rapidly starts pissing off like everyone around him because
he's like every All of his sermons are just him
and taggetizing rich people and preaching this like very very
left we rided in the Gospel. Read the Bible. Yeah, yeah,
it's incredible that this is a great quote from Howdaeschizo
and pierre anarchists into war Japan about this time as
a pastor from like someone who was there, it was

(03:47:55):
Pastor Howes. His sermons were superbs, so much so that
I thought it was a shame that more people we're
not there to hear them. It was like the Bible
talking in the spirit of pure socialism. And one of
my friends admired pastor hates so much to the assid
to celebrate his marriage. Yeah, and you know this like
this does not go around. Yeah yeah, he say, Well,

(03:48:18):
it's funny because he starts like as a Christian, right,
but like he just like progressively keeps getting more and
more left wing and keeps realizing that like okay, so
there's the Kingdom of God in heaven, right, but like
what if we did that here? And like as he's
getting like as he's pissing off more of the church,
um and as like they're they're they're in fighting, gets bigger,

(03:48:38):
he's becoming just more and more of an anarchist. And
by the end he just like gets up, he gets
booted out by his church and he's just like okay,
I'm an anarchist propagandist now, and soo he just like
leaves and he's like, well, I'm anarchist now. Um and
Shizo becomes what's known as a pure anarchist. And this
is something that is like entirely unique to Japan that
like there there's nothing there's this doesn't exist anywhere else, um,

(03:49:01):
and this is different than like like basically every other anarchist,
theorist and movement in Japan util this point has been
like something you can find parallels with other anarchist movements
around the globe, Like there are nihilists and lots of
countries as egoists everywhere, like their cynicalists literally in every
country has ever existed, and they mostly sort of believe
the same things. Um, you know, you get some like

(03:49:21):
like oh us Kai is like combination of egoism and
syndicalism is like it's cool, but like just I like
that idea. Yeah, yeah, it's a good idea, but it's
also not like it's like he's not's not like he's
not the first person to ever do this right, And
like the Japanese synicalist movement is built in the mold
of like the French syndicalists in the CGT, which is
this big union. Uh actually they're still around today there

(03:49:44):
so in like the very early eighteen hundreds they were there,
they were sort of Anarcoisy Nicolas Union and like like
you know six they have this famous charter about like anarchists,
but then they go reformist and they like they vote
for World War were one and now they're famous for
there's been like twelve things that probably could have been
a revolution in France if the CGT had ever a
single time went to the barricades. And they never do.

(03:50:04):
Wh's never ever, that's like their whole thing, like like
they set out by sixty eight, like that's the rest
of Yeah, this is the union. Yeah yeah, and they
set out by sixty eight. It's like it's incredible, but
you know it's the But you know, in like ninety
know six, right, the Japanese are looking at like cynical,
looking at this like oh my god, this just this
union has like millions of people in it, like it's enormous.

(03:50:26):
It's a cynicals union. Yeah yeah, And like you know
they they the Jeman's anarchists do is sort of their
standard cynicalist things like that they're building up democratic unions.
They're like working cords in general strike the season means
their production. They're like fighting for a society or production
is run by workers themselves. Blah blah blah blah, I
shouldn't blah blah blah blah. That's actually it's it's cool,

(03:50:47):
it's fine, but pure anarchism is not that I'm dying
to know what pure anarchism is. This new anarchism just dropped.
I'm excited. It's it's kind of a it's it's a
version of whocomunism. But like what if you like really
really rigorously applied in arco communism and and this is
this is the thing. It doesn't exist anywhere else because everywhere,

(03:51:09):
like in the West and in Latin America, like syndicalism
and anarchist and anarcho communism just like fuse to the
point where like they're not really they're like but there's
not really they're not really separate tendency, like nobody's written
in an arco communist theory, and like a hundred years
like like they started, you know, they've basically ceased to
be separate tendencies. But in Japan, the cyndicalists of the

(03:51:31):
and comps like fighting it out to the death. And
if this this produces pure anarchism and it rules can
talk about what it is because it's both wonderful and
incredibly silly at the same time. So okay, so to
understand what they're arguing about, because this is this is
this this causes like a huge fracture in the annex movements. Um,

(03:51:52):
I think we need to sort of like go into
like the vulgar bark disconception of class structure that's kind
of shared by the syndicalists. Okay, So okay, okay, so
you're you're okay. The important thing about this is that,
like this doesn't work at Japan, like the the vulgar
theory of like Marcus class structure, right, is that like, okay,
so you're supposed to have the great industrial proletariat, Like

(03:52:12):
it's that's supposed to become a majority of the population.
It's supposed to be unified and organized by like the
discipline of the factory system, and the entire world is
supposed to reduce to two classes like the boors, the borgewisi,
and the proletariat, like one class of people who have
nothing to sell but their labor. One class of people
who exist purely too like extract wealth from people because
like you, who you entirely supportless on my owning things.

(03:52:35):
And you know, eventually these are supposed to, like if
you if you read your communist manifesto, Eventually these two
classes are supposed to like meet themselves in like a
final conflict or the proletariat defeats it's called yeah, yeah, yeah,
and you know, the propitiy defeats them, and then they
abolished the conditions of their own existence as a class
and you get stateless class list butey in this society,

(03:52:56):
it's like a free association of workers. And this is
what communism is. And famously this never happened. Yeah, and
about what about the immortal science. Yeah, you know the well,
the w the wortal science. Yeah, this, this is the
This is the problem with the immortal science is that one,
instead of unifying the industrial politariat, capitalism like divides it

(03:53:17):
and just sort of like like literally spatially like kicks
them into suburbs. And you can get this sort of
like the system where instead of like unifying everyone into
one class, everyone is now just like completely alienated, like
boomer living in a suburb, even if it's still work
in a factory. And the other problem is that there's
never just two classes. And this is the problem that like, yeah,

(03:53:39):
all the other ones are our enemies. Yeah, this worried too,
you know, but this is a real problem, right because
like the Marxist running to this in Russia where it's
like okay, so we we did our thing, we did
our urban poultry revolution. But like there's all these peasants
and they don't like us because we keep taking their
granted gunpoint and but but you know that you have,
you have this one problem and popular, yeah, it goes great,

(03:54:02):
right if not nothing bad ever happens, they don't famously
have to kill enormous members of these people. But then
like you know, there's something weird happens, which is in China,
u Stalin managed to get like the entire or like
the entire urban Chinese working class like builitic working class killed,
and so Mao has to like make a revolution with peasants,
and so you know, peasants become the sort of like

(03:54:24):
you know, this this sort of like this, this is
what the actual refolution stutuct of communism wants up being,
like from like China, Columbia. It's these peasants. But like
you know, okay, so your your theory of the industrial
politariats already down the toilet. And this is what Shuzo
is reacting to. Like he looks at Japanese society and
there's like five people who you wage labor. Mostly there's
this enormous like fourteen million people who are tenant farmers

(03:54:47):
who are like trying to support their families and these
like tiny plots of rented land. But you know, and
like in center Marxis theories, like well, okay, these people
will inevitably be absorbed into capitalism, right, but they will
be driven by competition or whatever to the market. But
like they're not, it's not happening. They're just they're sitting
there and they're still just really poor in paying their landlords.
And yeah, yeah, well you just gotta wait for all

(03:55:09):
of Japan to be like annihilated. Yeah yeah, yeah, it's
it's it's it's going great. But and it's also like
there's all these other like classes to you, Like there's
there's these classes of like there's just like petty traders
for example, or like the like low level like really
low level government officials like like you know, you're like
like a clerk for example, who just don't fit into

(03:55:31):
this sort of class scheme at all, Like if it
marks some things about like like small like I don't know,
people who like cut wood and then go into a
town and sell it, like they're like, well, there's these
people are petit bourgeois like their reactionaries blah blah, And
there's this whole history of like anarchists organizing people like
this who marks just sort of like steer At, Like
Bolivia has this where like anarchists organized these like these

(03:55:53):
indigenous like like they're not really these indigenous artisans whose
things like they go to market and they saw their craft.
And the Marxists were just like a, why do we
care about the people? Like why yeah, workers, And it
always seems like the better I don't know, whenever I
was presented with the basic analysis of like, okay, we've
got the proletariat who have terrible lives and factories, and
then you have the lump and proletariat who refuse that

(03:56:14):
kind of work and are like beggars and thieves and
people doing work outside of the traditional system or whatever.
And then you have the petty bourgeoisie who are like
you know, owned stores or artisans or whatever. And then
you have the bourgeoisie over it. And it is always
funny to me because I look at I'm like, well, clearly,
the only ones that would be worth being would be
lumping proletariat or pett like they're the only ones to

(03:56:36):
get to have any fun Like, yeah, you know, and
I think like like that this is a problem that
that chooso sees. And I'm gonna read part of um
Krupt's book about his solution to this because I think
it's really interesting. Um. Given the failure of the available
methods of class analysis to capture the subtleties of Japan's
social structure, how To developed the notion of the propertyless

(03:56:59):
masses as an alternative concept of the proletariat. That the
propertyless masses was a wide ranching term which encompassed tenant farmers,
small traders, petty officials, artisans, and even wage laborers when
they are prepared to forsake their preoccupation with narrowly defending
advantages that accompanied their urban lifestyle and we're ready to
throw in their lot with the other oppressed strata. Yeah,

(03:57:20):
that makes sense. That's just you know, it's the like
or just the haves and have nots. It's like, okay,
well it's it's kind of but but there's there's a
crucial difference here, which is that like, okay, so the
other like the really big thing about the pure anarchist
that they don't believe in class struggle, Okay, and The
reason why they don't believe in class struggle is that

(03:57:42):
they think that, Okay, so they look at the history
of the union movement, right, and it's like, okay, so
has the union movement ended capitalism? It's like no, So
like okay, what what does it actually do? And the
answer is it gets people slightly more money under capitalism,
which is nice too, Yeah, which which is nice. But
it's also like choose a like adopted tub that there's
no other Japanese anarchists who who has this beta for

(03:58:03):
It's like he he compares it to like people fighting
inside of like a bandit king, where it's like, okay,
so if you have you have like fight, like the
bosses of the bandit gang are obviously exploiting like the
lower level people in the bandit gang. But you know,
I even even if even if the lower level people
in this bandit gang like take over, they're not actually
gonna stop being a bandit gang, right, It's just that

(03:58:24):
the the distribution of where the bandit gang wealth is
going changes. And this is a big thing for for
for the puranicist because the pior anarchists are you know,
they're they're looking at the industrial working classes like this
is tiny and they're they're all exploiting in the countryside
m hm. And so because of that, like they they
look at this, they look at the the union movement,

(03:58:44):
and they look at it at like class struggle, like
classical TM like class struggle, and they're like, well, this
doesn't cause a revolution. All this does is just like
sort of reorients like who's in power inside of Uh
that's what the Bolsheviks did, right, Yeah, But but it's
it's not just what the bulls so they paily this
is the Bolsheviks. But like it's also like there's analysis
of what a union is is that you're like class

(03:59:05):
struggles just defending your position under capitalism, but you're also
fighting very specifically narrowly for your class. Right, So if
you're like a factory worker, right, you're fighting for you
and the other factory workers. You're not fighting for like
I don't know, like a tenant farmer. You're not you know,
even fighting from like for like the guy down the
tree to Bate's bread. It's like you're you know, the
these these things that are like that are but they

(03:59:26):
look like instruments of class struggles, like your workers council,
your unions, your Soviets, Like they don't actually get rid
of class. It's just now another class has power, and
it doesn't matter if it's sort of like this is
what they're arguing, is like, it doesn't matter if it's
like democratic, It doesn't matter if it's like you know,
like there there there's no difference in how the actual
eventually the class and amics will play out. It doesn't

(03:59:48):
matter if it's like you know, like Lenin making like
Stalin making himself dictator, or you have a bunch of
democratic like Soviets, because they're both so instruments class power.
They're both sort of just going to reproduce this, this
whole system. And yeah, and so they have this thing
that they counterposed, which is like class struggle is just

(04:00:08):
about what stuff is happening inside the system. But that's
different revolution, which is like destroying this the system entirely.
And this is where you get into his stuff about
the division of labor, which is I think it's really
interesting because it I think this this sphere of pure
anarchism got to a bunch of critiques of stuff that
people have gotten to now, but they got to it
in where Okay, so she's always like one of his

(04:00:32):
big things is that like the division of labor is
inherently exploitative because it like it destroys sort of rural
community living and it replaces it with the centralization of
expertise and the central relation of power. And he also
thinks that like science is like a capitalist engine that's
used to like create the division of labor, and then
it's used to create like mechanization, and it's used to

(04:00:53):
create like labor exploitation. Yeah, that's that sounds like modern.
A lot of like stuff that I read more modern. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
except this is like they're doing this in like like
nineteen twenties seven. Ye else is a capitalist engine of
exploitation products and surfaces the podcast industrial complex. It's true,

(04:01:16):
and we're back with more things that are exploitative and
the theoretically theoretically yes, yes, but we we we we
have we have to get through. We have to get
through the last exploitative thing, which is the thing. I
talked a bit about this earlier, but like the Puranicists
argued that like cities inherently are this concentration of wealthy
resources and power, and so like farmers and workers need

(04:01:41):
to work together to destroy all forms of power, including cities.
And this sounds a lot like primitive, is yeah, it does,
although you know they wouldn't necessarily be like repping the farmers.
And I think I think primitives might be the wrong term.
But it's definitely a lot of like the anti tech stuff.
And well it's it's interesting, okay, So they have they

(04:02:01):
have like they threat this needle where so like there
are people in this period who want to just go
back to pure rural agrarianism and don't want their to technology,
and the pure anarchists are like, no, we still want technology,
but we don't want the division of labor. So they're like,
we like our raping machines so we don't have to
work as much when we're farming. We just don't want

(04:02:23):
everyone to live in apartments. Yeah, I mean even the
reaping machine. I don't know, Like it's kind of unclear
to me how this is exactually supposed to work, because like,
well we'll get into this. I guess we can just
get into this now, which is it? Like, Okay, so
they really don't like the division of labor because they
think the division of labor like well, Okay, they have,

(04:02:45):
they have like there's like three critiques of but one
is that like when you have a division of labor,
labor becomes like mechanized industrialized. And when that happens, um
labor because like it gets reduced to just like a
cog you put in a machine m hm. And they
see this is like this is like an inherent like
thing that happens with labor specializations. You just end up
like being a person who makes more repetitive moving a

(04:03:07):
factory over and over again, like you're not free because
of this UM. And they also argue that like specialization
means that people only care about like labor that they
do and so this gives you like an identity that
that divides workers from one sector. Like say if you're
if you're you know, you're like a coal miner, right,
your daily experience is so utterly different than a baker.

(04:03:30):
And it's not just like your experience, it's like it's
like your knowledge is different. The other person is not gonna,
like the baker is not gonna understand what you're doing. Um.
And you keep wanting to argue against this political position
that no, no, that misunderstands the nature of specialization at all,
you know. But then I'm like, all right, I can't

(04:03:51):
go back and convince these people. Yeah, I think, like
I think, okay, this is I'm gonna I'm gonna, I'm
gonna put on my my my marks, my like weird
left calm mars, noise and critique not a platform, which
is not they they actually wanted as a platform, but like,
I think it would have been a great critique and

(04:04:12):
not a very good platform. Yeah, they're the platform. Yeah,
I mean I think I think there's there's the interesting
elements of it. Like they have this argument that like, okay,
so if if you have your like your your syndicalists
like society right where Okay, so you have a bunch
of like, you have a bunch of like coal miners,
you have a bunch of people who like make pots

(04:04:34):
and pans. But you need to coordinate your labor because
because you you have you have like specialization, you have
branches of labor. And their argument is that, okay, so well,
the cynicales why you do this. You have coordinating committees,
right you You like, elect a person you like, send
them to a coordinating council, and the coordinating council like
coordinates stuff, and she was just like, well, that's just

(04:04:55):
gonna choose those like things like that's just gonna turn
into a state. Like you're just going to create a
permanent class, even even if ap rotate people. You're you're
you're creating an administrative body that's going to like rebuild
the state again. And yeah, like okay, like I'm makin
this like shrugging gesture that the audience cans like yeah,
I got you know, Yeah, I I don't. Okay, So,

(04:05:16):
like I don't think he's right about like most of this,
Like I think he's sort of wrong about like almost
all of it. The thing, the thing that stuck with
me phil when I read this is like his specific
critique of syndicalism, which is that it maintains like the
structure of the old world. Because if you're a syndicalist

(04:05:36):
and your your society is based on unions running their workplaces,
then you've maintained the division of labor, but you've also
maintained like the basic like geographic, physical, technological, and organizational
structure of capitalism, like all of the like all of
that stuff is still in the same place, and you're
still sort of like going there to do your job,

(04:05:57):
and I think there is an interesting sort of like
like I think there was a genuinely interesting critique there
of yeah, like how how do you make sure that
you aren't just sort of reproducing that stuff? And like
like I mean, I don't know, like the critique of

(04:06:18):
why would you want to build a society like structured
along the lines of production? Like why why do you
want to structure your society around work? Like that's awful.
I I like that about the pure anarchists, where they
were kind of like let's let's let's throw away the
Marxist ship for a minute and like just actually like
figure out what we want, and like I I like
that about it, But I I dislike the idea of like,

(04:06:41):
well it's it's it would be my problem with syndicalism,
and most of the syndicalists I met believe in syndicalism
as a method and not an end result. Right, Um,
it's a way of building workers power, not a way
to create a society. But but if syndicalists were like
everyone must wake up and go to their work job
and then make eight widgets, but it's collectively determined which

(04:07:01):
widgets that you make right like fun that, but also
if it was like everyone goes and wakes up and
goes to their collective farm and maybe we use raping
machines and maybe we don't. And it's just like I
get so unexcited by It's like one of the reasons
that like a lot of the like nitpicky branches of
anarchism don't they interest me, but I don't like subscribe
to any of them is because I'm like, well, what

(04:07:24):
if some people like this ship and some people like
this ship like and you know, maybe they're could be
fucking different. Imagine that we could have a plurality of
economic models systems. But you know whatever, um I'm now
arguing with that people who I probably would interesting like, well,
I don't know, because these guys like they they have

(04:07:45):
like the maoist thing going on where like they will
like attack other leftist groups who like don't like follow
their line. And so this is where this whole thing
is wild, because it was one of the everything is
like the the pure anarchists are like completely convinced that
syndicalism is like a sort of like well they think
it's it's just like it's not an anarchist thing. It's

(04:08:07):
just like a tendency to labor movement. And they also
think that like it's basically like a bastardised form of
Marxism because they're not like entirely wrong about either of
those things. But yeah, except in a different places and times. Yeah,
but it's like the thing, the thing that they have
about it, like because they're they're completely convinced that syndicalism
will inevitably just like turn into like Soviet communism. It's

(04:08:29):
like it's incredibly silly. Um, but like like this, you know,
I like, on the one hand, like that they are
kind of inventing a lot of the sort of like
like they're they're inventing a lot of the sort of
like some okay, some bad arguments about like specialization and

(04:08:51):
stuff like like some anti work stuff too that like
is going to be around later. They're also inventing a
lot of stuff that's like and you know, initially this
kind of like new theory doesn't have this doesn't have
an enormous effect. Um. In six, the Federation of Black

(04:09:13):
Youth or COCODA and has its first public meeting and
they have a bunch of cool slogans, the slogans rolled
they have. The emancipation of workers must be carried out
by the workers themselves. We insist on libertarian federation, destroy
the political movement, get rid of, reject the Poltarian party,
get rid of professional activists with all oppressive laws and ordinances.

(04:09:37):
That is an entirely based platform. Yeah, sweet, it's it's good. Yeah,
And you know there were things despite the fact that
it's called the Federation of Black Youth, this is like
not a youth I mean, I mean there's like youth
in it, but like it's it's this thing's backed by
like remember those those printers unions that I was talking
about last episode that as like, hi, you have like
set up. So they're all heavily involved in this um

(04:09:58):
and they do a bunch of cool labor stuff, Like
they they get involved in like, uh, there's a bunch
of tram worker strikes, they get involved in the there
in this, uh, the Japanese Musical instrument company strike, which
is like there's like over a thousand people on strike
for like over a hundred days, and there's there's this
great split where like so the leadership of the union
is Bolshevik, but like a bunch of the like a

(04:10:19):
bunch of the ordinary people in the union are anarchists,
and so you have the there's there's like there's this
fun tension going around there. They're they're they're they're doing
the stuff. Um and then the anarchists form um Zengoku Gaterrand,
which is the All Japanese Libertarian Federation of Labor Unions,
which is a it's a federation of twenty unions. These
are the pure anarchists that you're talking about that are

(04:10:40):
doing all this. So sorry, at this point, they haven't
split yet, okay, because it was like this sounds like
all the stuff that they said that they don't want
to do. Yeah, well, this is like the other the
other wild thing about this is that like, okay, so
the entirety of like of like pyrannicist theory, right, is
about how like unions don't do revolutions and that class struggle,
but like they still do strikes, like they still do

(04:11:02):
all the normal stuff. It's kind of wild, Okay, I
kind of like that, yeah, you know, and like and
and this that that's sort of how they're able to
get along in this early period and these unions like okay,
so there's like a lot of printers unions in this
because the prints unions are just really anarchists. But there's
there's like there's a tenant farmers union. There's a loutch
of like rubber unions, and it grows to like fifteen

(04:11:22):
workers almost immediately, and yeah, they're they're doing a lot
of cool stuff, like they have they have these huge
demonstrations in support Saco and Vinzetti, uh to the US
is killing for being anarchists, and also Italians just like yeah,
the one time anti Italian racism was real and a

(04:11:45):
hundred years ago ship was real different than it is
now and it doesn't yeah yeah, yeah yeah. And for
for for one year, this like this works great, you know,
like the yeah that the unions up to like I
think they get up to like thousand members, like it
gets pretty big. But then intense conflict between the syndicalists

(04:12:08):
and the anarchac and the pure anarchists breakout. And this
gets so bad so fast that like the International working
Man's Association, which is the like like the giant international
like Federation of Cynicalist Movements like sends them a letter
that are like, hey, cynicalist and Archer communists get along
every literally everywhere else on earth. Their chilk. You guys
like chill and the anarcha communists in Cocaduran. Uh, their

(04:12:33):
response is, h we are fighting quote the betrayers, opportunists
and union imperialists in Zengoku Juran's ranks can't have nice things.
You know, it's great, it gets better, it gets better.
So they lose. Yeah, okay, look in the conference so

(04:12:57):
uh Enoka Juran which is the Union federation, like they
have they have a conference, they have the yearly conference,
and there's just like giant battle over like what the
organizations platform is going to be a thing that doesn't
matter at all, except it's a proxy ideological fight. And uh,
both sides to start screaming at each other. And I'm
gonna read this description from Ardashizo and Pyannicism into War Japan.

(04:13:19):
Cocona and members barricaded the barrack to the anarchy. The
anarchist syndicolist jeering and cat calling them, and the proceedings
degenerated to the level where it was almost impossible to
hear the speeches. Eventually, the anarcho Synicholas decided they had
had enough unflirling their black flags, they walked out of
the hall to a chorus of taunts such as believers, blind,

(04:13:40):
believers in Central authority, Bolsheviks, and betrayers, Oh my god,
got over yourself. Oh my no, okay, to be fair
to the pure anarchists, one of so, okay, a bunch
of the cynicals yount start leaving and all one of
them does actually join the Bolsheviks, but like all the

(04:14:00):
other ones don't because they're not and you get this
period there's like they have like the cynical list and
the periodicis of dueling magazines. Uh, there's won't call black flag.
There won't called black battle. And like so Cokerran, which
is like the youth mid thing, like the cynicalas and
the anarchists are still in it together, and they like
they start just like fighting each other in the street
when they run into each other, because the the this

(04:14:22):
is more oppressing than everyone getting murdered after the earthquake,
not the anarchist killing part. Yeah well, I mean yeah, yeah,
it's it's like it's incredible, you know, and like yeah,
they what's interesting about this though, is that like the
inarchal communists, like when the union splits, like almost all

(04:14:44):
of the people stay with the communists, even though the
inucer communist like explicitly saying we're not fighting for like
wage increases, we're just fighting for revolution, and fine, I'm
alright with that. Yeah. Well, but there's interesting stuff too worse,
like like they're also so be be because they have
this thing that's like, okay, so that the urban workers
are like exploiting the well, okay, the line about it's

(04:15:07):
complicated because it's like they think the urban workers are
exploiting the countryside, but they also don't think that the
solution to it is to just like turn it the
other way around. They think that like the workers and
the tenant farmers just worked together to like make the
oppression go away, which is like a reasonable stance on it. Yeah,
but it means that, you know, they're interested in, like
they're interested in the royal movement in a way that
like the other Japanese lefe stupments aren't. But unfortunately, you know, Okay,

(04:15:31):
there's a big debate as to whether this split like
actually like like how big a role this split had
in the collapse of anarchism, because like bye bye by,
like by like nineteen thirty one, Like the fascists have
just straight up taken over Manchuria. Like I think things
have gotten so fascist that it's like it's unclear whether

(04:15:52):
the split matter at all. Yeah, um yeah, but you know,
they run into this problem where like like coke and
like the state really hates them, and they are a
bunch of them get arrested and that they you know,
they respond to being arrested by like getting more militant.
But then that just you know, that fuels the cycle

(04:16:13):
of them getting arrested for and people just leave because
they're like, well, okay, if I'm in this organization, like
we're all just gonna like get shot. I mean that's
the spiral. Yeah yeah, And you know it's his real problem,
and like how does Chesu himself becomes just like incredibly
depressed by the depression of the movement. But actually thirty
two he just leaves like he's just out. He like

(04:16:34):
renounces his anarchism. He abuses his wife because this is
the story of a bunch of guys who sucked and
then he drink Yeah, well I guess okay, he he
did it to him. Yeah, he drinks it. The death
got it done. On his own. Yeah, and you know,
so he he dies and he like kills himself. Well

(04:16:55):
I don't think he was doing a purpose, but he
just dies from drinking too much. Four and that year,
actually the anarcho communists narcos niklas like get back together.
But it doesn't matter because by this point the fascist
such a start different power. And yeah, the anarchists they do,
they do one last world uprising and they fight a
lot of cops and then all of them get arrested

(04:17:16):
and anarchism just sort of dies until the end of
World War two. And yeah, it's you know, okay, anarchism
does really emerge after the war, but that's like that,
that's a whole another story and entirely. Uh what I
will say about is if you see those those construction
hats from the protests, and you see one that's just
all black, it doesn't have like a name written on it,

(04:17:38):
like those are the anarchists whistle around um and you know,
and anarchism of Japan like survives to this day. There
there there's a book called the Manual for a Worldwide
for a worldwide manuk revolts that like one day, I
swear to God, I'm actually gonna read. But he is
really big in China. Well, okay, I said really big
in China. It's very influential in a very small subcultural

(04:18:01):
anarchist scene in China. But I'm talking about them because
it heavily influenced Like the people who wrote the Lying
Flat manifesto, Um, we're like, we're very heavily influenced by
this stuff. Oh okay, okay, So we would just episode
about this a while back, but Lying Flat was this
thing in China, I guess still going on, but like

(04:18:21):
people were just like it's kind of it was kind
of the version of anti work or most people like
discovered Diogenes and or like what if I just didn't work?
What if I just like lived on, like I worked
like one day a month and then lived on like
nothing so I didn't have to work, Or if I
just quit. What if I just like stop doing all
of this capitalist stuff, and what if I like stop

(04:18:42):
having to deal with this patriarchy. What if I just like,
you know, yeah, and it takes kind of like yeah, yeah,
they're they're great. They've loss of one Diogenes quotes, lots
of like the the manifesto they released is like very
it's like very anarchist and yeah, like that thing, and
that was like like this, this is a big enough
social movement that like like she jumping like mentioned it

(04:19:05):
in a speech, okay, and so yeah, like Jeffrey's anachism.
Still for them, they were had kind of concerned about
like the same way a whole bunch of like oligarchs
got concerned about the anti work stuff, and you saw
like anti work hit pieces in the past like six months.
It was it was like similar things, being like, well,

(04:19:26):
this better not catch on more because that could really
suck for us. That's as optimistic of a note as
you could possibly get out of the story, which is
that they're still around and they still influenced things that matter,
so and hopefully they don't fight each other more than
the state. Yeah, don't don't do that, Like I like, yes,

(04:19:52):
I guess I will make my controversial Sometimes it's okay
to stab an abuser under the throat stance. But also,
don't urge all your syndicalists because on the accusation of
Bullshevism hot take, don't purge all your classes. Yeah, yeah,
don't systematize violence like that. You know, you're like this

(04:20:12):
individual guy just did this thing, and I'm real upset
that he just did it to me, And there's like
a throat. I'm not actually making an actual advocacy. I'm
talking about how sometimes when that has happened in history,
that seemed kind of cool. But yeah, not the not
the systemic kick out all the people who have this
minor I mean, it's really funny to me because I'm like,

(04:20:35):
I'm like huge anti infighting. Then people are like, don't
you spend all your time fighting tankies on the internet,
And I'm like, they want to make a state that's different. Yeah,
they believe that they everyone should be thrown in jail.
That is a different thing. Um. Also, I don't like

(04:20:56):
you've got to manage to polycuele drauma, Like you've gotta manage.
It's got to be kept under control. You cannot allow
your retired you seem to be factionalized over rival policels
and anarchists control your polychuel drama quotations and partisis impossible. See,

(04:21:16):
that's why you just need more. Maybe it's not true,
it's like you need more multi generational anarchists because I
think people in their forties give less of a ship
about a lot of the drama. But then I'm like,
maybe that's not true. Maybe people on their forties it
give just as much of a ship about all the drama. Anarchism,

(04:21:37):
wonderful idea Yep, yeah, it's good. And speaking of wonderful ideas,
it is time for us to do the plugs. Um. First,
I just want to plug Jimmie Loftus is new Cools
one media podcast Goes Church by Jimmie Loftus. Uh. By

(04:21:57):
the time this drops, episode one will be out in
Episode two will be dropping the next Monday, I believe,
yes exactly. And we also have another podcast on Cools
and Media with one Margaret Killjoy called Cool People Who
Did Cool Stuff? Margaret, you wanted to tell us about that? Oh?
Should should I start working on that. I'll get it

(04:22:19):
done by monday. Okay? Cool? Um, I have a new
podcast called Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff, which is
as about cool people who did did cool stuff, and
you might like it if you like stories about people who. Um,
I can't say cool stuff again, I'll have to use
come up with more synonyms. Really, it's just all a

(04:22:41):
competition to see how many synonyms for cool I can
come up with without using the word based, because I
feel like I'm too old to use the word based
without really, this is what you are here for. So
I'm much more eloquent on my podcast, which you can
catch every Monday and Wednesday wherever you get your podcasts,
probably wherever you got this podcast is where you can
find it. And the trailer is out now, so you

(04:23:02):
can go and you can listen to the trailer where
I talk about some anarchist bank robbers who broke out
of prison, because why would you be in prison when
you could be outside of prison, which is generally the
preferable position to be in, with the exception of like
every now and then, like people break up out of
jail by like someone goes to jail on purpose, but
they have like hacks all blades in their shoes and ship.

(04:23:23):
That would be cool too. Um So more breaking your
friends out of jail and less chasing them out of
the room jeering at them is my general rule. I
hate to make rules, but if I were to make one,
it would be that. And you can hear me talk
about those kinds of stories on the podcast. Well, thank thank,

(04:23:47):
thank you so much for joining joining us today, for
for Chris to talk about the wonderful, wonderful history of
Japanese and the very the many deaths that are associated
in those poor people and yeah, the like so basically

(04:24:08):
like a like a mini Korean genocide. Yeah, yeah, intense.
Well that's it for us today. You can find this
on Instagram. It Happen to your pot in cool Zone Media. Uh,
see you next week and go listen to podcasts. We
have many of them. Hey, we'll be back Monday with

(04:24:32):
more episodes every week from now until the heat Death
of the Universe. It Could Happen Here is a production
of cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from cool Zone Media,
visit our website cool zone media dot com or check
us out on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can find sources
for It Could Happen Here, updated monthly at cool zone
Media dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening.