April 26, 2022 • 50 mins
In part 1 of Mia's interview with Nicolas Scott about the Cordones Industriales, Chilean radical workers organizations during the revolution, we discuss the political and economic history that led to them.
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to It could happen here a podcast that you
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, so you probably
know what it's about. If you don't, it's about things
falling apart and then putting it back together again. And
today we are doing a historical things trying to go
(00:26):
back together and then fell apart again episodes and with me,
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
(00:50):
on a few other episodes that that we've done about
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. It's tension in the sort
of mainstream like left analysis of what happened to all
End and what was going on in that period. Which
is the Cordonas. And Nick has written about this a
(01:12):
lot and is also writing more about this, and it
is doing research. Actually, do do do you do you care?
Do you mind if I mentioned that you're in chileading
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 is is different
(01:34):
about it than a lot of the the stuff that
you'll read about all End and about the Cordonas 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 to this sort
(01:55):
of revolutionary moment. Yeah, that's great. I mean, I think
it's important that we start at an earlier moment to
really understand how the Cordonas emerge as a specific um culture,
a specific urban space across the city of Santiago. Uh.
You know, the English translation of the Cordonas industrialist would
(02:16):
essentially just be industrial belts. 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. You know, over the course
(02:39):
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 history of Chile UH.
(03:02):
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 to do for Santiago
(03:25):
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 Santiago itself. Uh.
(03:47):
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, a lot is happening. Uh.
(04:07):
Primarily you have the sort of twin processes of industrialization,
sort of rapid industrialization that's taking place, which 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. And you're having sort of two factors at
(04:30):
play in this miggration. 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 sort of infrastructure that a city would
afford relative to the countryside. UH. And these two processes
(04:54):
sort of come to a head in the nineteen fifties
UM in Chile, and by the end of the nineteen
fIF these UH it's clear to a growing set of people, UM,
including Juan Pariochia, who is an architect, UM, that something
needs to be done. There needs to be a new
urban plan for the city of Santiago UH. And this
(05:14):
urban plan what they try to do is it's the
first time that there's a sort of intercommunal which communal
in the 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 the first time that this word
(05:34):
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 intervening years from the early
(05:55):
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 industry.
They want it further on the periphery. Uh. And so
that's part of this urban plan that essentially tries to
zone basically zone um these uh, these sectors. And so
(06:20):
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, how did they then
give rise to an urban culture that will then manifest
(06:43):
itself in a very revolutionary moment once 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 as happens really across the world.
(07:03):
But mostly after that period and that that that's 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, in like the nineteen eighties, or is it
closer to well, you know, I've talked I've talked about this,
(07:26):
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 a different kind of um like relation, I mean,
(07:47):
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, you know, just outside the city of
Santiago is is still largely rural. Right where where the
first cordon will emerge on the southwestern side of the
city is still a largely rural part of the city itself. Uh.
(08:14):
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, 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
(08:36):
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,
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,
(08:59):
So they're moving then to the same areas. So in
some senses, the sort of historical dynamics of the region
are undercutting the sort of success of the planners when
it comes 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
(09:19):
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
have this kind of vailing 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
(09:41):
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.
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 and think about this historiographically, Uh,
(10:02):
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, 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,
(10:24):
from a sociological point of view, right, um. And the
reason this is 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 social concern and
the social movement that is bound up or known as
the sort of pueblad or movement, is a movement for housing. Right.
(10:46):
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 poma or seizure right. And so what they
will do when they arrive in these places of land
is that they will seize these lots and they will
(11:08):
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,
that's what they would leverage them as a claim for that.
(11:29):
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 they're
moving to the cities and you know, moving into what
(11:51):
would be referred to as either complimentos or probationists. 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 with the older generation of
migrants that migrated from the north of Chile, right from
(12:13):
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 Churle, Chile, which, following the development
of sort of synthetic forms of explosives, nitrates are not
saltpeter specifically, is not as high in demand anymore. So
(12:34):
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 and
they're sort of mixing in these areas in specific, and that,
(12:57):
to me is why it's so important to think about
the cordonus is more than just an organization that emerges
in the early nineteen seventies and really think about them
as a space, as a geographic space that developed their
own unique forms of local culture informed by these larger,
more macro historical processes. Yeah. That that that that seems
(13:20):
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 fact that, Yeah,
the fact that you have multiple different essentially like you
(13:41):
have you have multiple difference so it 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 like
the late nineteen sies, early nine seventies is like the
olden age of the factory occupation, and I think, you know,
(14:03):
I think you can draw similarities between that and between
the Cardonis, 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 similar dynamic of you get you get
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 know, you have this
(14:24):
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 is like a distinct product of like this
exact configuration of of so social class is hitting each
(14:46):
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 market work the 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
(15:08):
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 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
(15:30):
dominant over the countryside, um? And things like that. But
I think it's different, or not necessarily different, but perhaps
unique in the Chilean case, um, is that this is
a you know, you have a culture in Chile that
is known world over for its political culture. Right, everyone
(15:51):
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, 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
(16:12):
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 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.
(16:34):
That's what's going to make the end a government so
unique in this moment um. But what also makes the
court bonus unique is this sort of relationship between social
space and physical space in the city. So, for example,
the very first court zone that emerges in nineteen two
Studios Maipoo, as I mentioned earlier, on the southwest of
the city. That one, as I mentioned, because it had
(16:57):
such close contact with the old sector on that edge,
had a lot more solidarity between world laborers and factory laborers,
such that by ninety 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
(17:20):
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 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
(17:42):
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,
is what is the role of the Catholic Church here? So,
for example, the Catholic Church history really within the and
within the historiography as well, UM has always been associated
(18:05):
with the public door 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 the population, you know, poor 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
(18:28):
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 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.
(18:50):
And in the case of the Quamacina 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 was was fundamental in helping some of the workers
established unions uh in in the cordon. So, for example,
the Sumar Textile factory, which was functionally a city unto itself.
(19:12):
This this textile company had a series of different factories
within its property. So it had a cotton plant, it
had 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 UH in Chile. In
the labor code in Chile from the nineteen thirties, there
(19:34):
were two different types of unions per factory or per plant.
You had the industrial union, which we could think of
as the 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,
(19:55):
not so much the manual labors, but everyone else in
the factory and in the case of Sumar specifically the
cotton plant itself. UM in the late nineties sixties, when
they're 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
(20:15):
on it. They don't have their own local yet because
they haven't founded union. And so what they ultimately do
is they reach out to the parish priest in San Kayatano,
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
(20:37):
major role both in the cor bonus 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
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
(21:08):
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,
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 takes this like very hard left
(21:29):
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 literally
doing kidnappings of like random government officials. And I think, yeah,
I guess in in in in this context, what what's
(21:58):
interesting to me, I guess is yeah, like how how much? Okay, So,
like what is the the you're you're talking You're talking
about the sort of like the sort of pastoralism of
this this sort of like social gospel message. Is there
is there like a divide between the way the church
is working in the city and the ways working in
the countryside or is it just sort of like it's
(22:21):
all shifting left but they're more the influence of the
church is larger in among sort of real and extoral 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,
(22:42):
and so that's actually the documents that I'm sort of
sifting through as 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 Santia, you know, uh,
you know, in the region itself. Following Vatican to you
(23:04):
have the Episcopal Conference of Latin America's second conference that
takes place in the nineteen sixties in Median 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
(23:26):
to fit its own pastoralism, its own sort of pastoral
plan 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,
(23:47):
amongst the church hierarchy here that UM are very you know,
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
(24:08):
just sort of accepted wholesale by the church in Latin America. Well,
a lot of the documents that I'm encuntering 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
(24:29):
Church as a global institution and Marxism as a global
ideology are scene as antithetical. And here the idea that
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
(24:51):
religion that comes out of the early form of Marxism
Leninism from early twentieth century. And so there's a great
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
(25:14):
will use. But the other big thing that comes out
of this in addition to this sort of discourse of liberation,
is this new idea of UM Catholic base 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
(25:37):
the hierarchy of the church. Right, you have the sort
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
(26:00):
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 say San Kayatano Parish and the work that
it's doing with workers and assume our factory and sort
of this has me thinking about, you know, what does
(26:22):
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 Socialists and the communist which
(26:43):
is you know, a majority of workers, the Christian Democrats
are also a large force. Right In nineteen sixty four,
President at what a praise 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
(27:06):
as to a revolution in liberty um, which is sort
of a communitarian reformism that is essentially seen as perhaps
forestalling Marxist revolution, a 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
(27:28):
party 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 wipocratic parties and you're up
there is very powerful Chusian depocratic parties like across Latin America. Yeah,
(27:50):
can we can we talk a bit about like what
that is and how that's different from like, you know,
how how it's different from just like your your generic
your generic 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, so
(28:11):
it does seem very foreign to us. Um. But really
with the sort of wager 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, but
(28:33):
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 stay a socialist or
a communist would believe in, you know. So, for a
(28:53):
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
(29:14):
a sort of radical communism, 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 an eradication
(29:37):
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 to talking about all End a briefly,
because I think that's an interesting and one of the
things you're talking about earlier is ill End talking about Okay,
well we can have a democratic path to socialism. And
(29:57):
what's what's very interesting to me about both Allende and
what's happening in the cordonation is that like, okay, so
like that that that is a that 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
(30:17):
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 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,
(30:40):
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 then the movement against sort of like
like you don't see an actual attempt to like eliminate
the 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
(31:03):
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,
(31:26):
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. She's still your boss, and that isn't what
(31:47):
happens in Chile, in in in in the in the
same way that Yeah, I'm interested, why why why why
this looks different here? I guess no, I think this
is a great question, you know, And so to to
get to end A, it is imperative that we start
with Fray in nineteen sixty four, and in some sences
(32:08):
we can start even in nineteen fifty seven, which is
End's first attempt at running for president UM. 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.
(32:30):
And this is 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 importorted. However, by the late nineteen fifties,
(32:54):
things have begun to bottleneck right, largely in the Chilian case,
because a lot of the countryside is still under control
of the Latin fundio of grand estate, right, 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
(33:15):
the development of capital goods in industry, right, and the
capital goods are what you need to really jump start
industry wholesale. 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 is essentially trying to first run on a
(33:38):
platform of industrialization and to 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, repress of labor in some senses, freezing
(34:02):
of any sort of gains of the labor movement, et cetera.
This ultimately does not work, right. And so in nineteen four,
you know, Shaker, you have calls then for a more
revolutionary approach. Well. Also, what's happening in nineteen sixty four,
right as we're now in the wake of the Cuban
Revolution which has taken place, which has put the America's
(34:24):
as a hemispheric designation unnoticed 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
(34:45):
then do is launched the Alliance for Progress, which is
essentially a way of funneling money into reformist minded governments
as a way to appease these calls for revolution UM,
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.
(35:09):
UM and Frey wins the nineteen sixty four election handily. Now,
there's a great debate to be had on whether or
not the or whether the involvement of the CIA 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 and to lead up to
(35:31):
the coup in the nineteen seventies. UM. You know, hopefully
one day we'll have a better sense of really what
went on that explains such a lot sighted defeat of
end 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 Alliance Progress UM.
(35:55):
Also the nationalization of copper, which will be fully nationalized
under a ENDE in THEES, but it actually exists in
a state of so called negotiating nationalization under Frey, or
what Fray would refer to as the Chileanization of copper,
in which Chile would take a very small fifty one,
(36:16):
you know percent controlling 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.
(36:38):
There there have been a lot of times with 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 Forum
in order to like stop and stop an actual revolution
from happening. So we'll do a sort of capital's version
of it. It's interesting to me that Chile does it
because I feel like that that's not something that happened
(36:59):
in to the other Latin American states whe the CIA
gets involved. Um. Yeah, well it's also I mean, the
Alliance for Progress is official government policy. Um. You know,
Kenny 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,
(37:20):
the Appliance 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
borne out as one of the successes insofar as it
is what initiates Theian reform in Chile. So so I
guess So, okay, So what you're saying is that there
(37:44):
are there there's there's there's a specific group of parties
at the u S backs at this period who are
trying to do this sort of who are trying to
do some kind of reform um like here, who are
trying to do this sort of like the class collaboration
reform to stave off revolution thing. And then I guess
the like later policy becomes just do the do kind
(38:05):
of insurgency on behalf of the landowners. Yeah, I mean
the way the Phray. 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
(38:28):
of the Chilean economy for 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, Fray thinks
that they can figure it out via these sort of reforms,
via the gray in reform. Be it the sort of
(38:49):
chileanization of the great minding wealth of the country. Uh,
in terms of factory or industry level. They essentially proposed
this idea of sort of workers enterprises is that is
somewhat modeled off the Yugoslavian model, which was a much
more communitarian um approach. Right as you were saying earlier,
you know, the boss is still there. Workers do have
(39:12):
a stake and control of the enterprise, um, but private
property still exists, right, 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
(39:32):
is like I don't know, like like a nineteen thirties
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 this is fascinating. In fact,
(39:55):
one of my sort of dream projects or sort of
dream archives to get into an old point of the
Yugoslavian archives or former Yugoslavian archives, because there is a
lot of collaboration taking place between the Yugoslavian left and
Chilians at this time. UM. The problem is that a
lot of this never really gets off the ground in practice.
(40:15):
It is a lot of 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
(40:35):
seventy campaign of Southern end Right. And this is what
really gets us to the to Ayenda's 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
(40:57):
part the month Um that really um solidifies or if
you will, sort of the final push um or loss
of legitimacy for the Free Administration, as well as a
pushing the sort of more popular classes to um be
opposed to the Free Administration, be opposed to sort of
the Christian democratic message of reformantism, and decides to sort
(41:22):
of give revolution a chance. Uh. And it's into that
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
(41:43):
a coalition of leftist parties, primarily the Socialists, of which
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. The
Communists are a much more um reserved approach to revolution,
(42:04):
and by which I mean they're very much um going
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 ends, with the INDs view of legislating socialism. That's
(42:30):
I guess another interesting aspect of this, because like that's
something I think also doesn't get discussed very much, which
is this period where like a lot of the like
that that was the party discipline being opposed from Moscow
for like a lot of this period like is explicitly
telling them, not like explicitly saying don't do a revolution
like hold and stabilize the situation. Um is that the case,
(42:53):
like so I because I I okay, this is this
is again going back to me knowing Italy but I
know um Chile. That is that something like how how
long has that been? Policy? Frow 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
(43:14):
like the muscle line flips back and forth somewhat randomly
depending on like what it's going, doesn't right, It flips
a lot, especially in that ninety 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 seven. Um, there is a meeting of the
(43:34):
Common Turn in nineteen fifty seven, and that's when the
idea of individual national roads to socialism becomes 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
(43:56):
to be a Cuban revolutionary model, UM, it be its own,
so that when Allende proposes 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 we
will tow that line throughout the three years, throughout the
(44:17):
thousand days of the end government, which will then ultimately
put them into conflict with the left wing of the
Socialist Party, which is pushing for a much more radical um,
a radical ship. And that's really the sort of context
that the cordon is emerge out of in nineteen seventy two,
is the sort of growing factionalism, growing secretary sectarianism within
(44:39):
the ruling coalition of the Popular Unity. Yeah, and I
guess this 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, yeah, I mean partially just yeah,
(45:01):
the influence of Yugoslavia is fascinating to me because I
mean that explained, that explains so much, right, Like that,
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 that these these multifaceted,
(45:24):
multi layer influences globally as well as locally within Chile
as well as regionally, UM produced 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 the nation, elected democratically in a free
(45:49):
and fair election that is not contested UM or anything
like that. 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 demand it to the Congress, and the Congress
typically will just rubber stamp the victory I end. However,
(46:13):
you know, there's a lot of apprehension about what he
means for the country, what he means for the sort
of landed deletes, what he means for the sort of
oligarchs that control the grand monopolies in Chile. Uh, and
so there is a lot of tension. Well, this is
also then where the actions the CIA backfire. UM. So
(46:34):
the work of the National Security Archive has done great
work for uncovering the sort of two track plan that
Nixon and Kissinger have for subverting the election of A
and A 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
(46:55):
they attempt to foment involves General Renee Schneider, and it
is the attempt is that 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.
(47:18):
Things can go haywire and Schneider is assassinated, he's shot
UM accidentally and player 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 Allende and it has
(47:38):
decided that they will approve his um candidacy, his election,
and that he will be affirmed as the president um.
And you know, 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 a platform in the
(48:01):
popul Unities case was what they referred to as the
sort of basic agreement between the coalition and the both
the people of Chile 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,
(48:22):
any sort of economic restructuring that they would achieve or
that they would try to achieve in Chile would be taken,
would take place, would be used or one through the
halls of Congress. Right, everything would be legislated. Everything would
still be remain um the sort of Chilean government as normal. Right.
(48:43):
This is where you get all ends famous phrase that
the revolution is going to be with infoto us and
bainto right, with meat pies and red wine um, which means,
you know, 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.
(49:06):
This has when it could happen here. Join us tomorrow
for part two of this interview, where we walk through
the Chilean Revolution, the Cordones, and their lasting ImpACTA in society.
If you 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 dignified life to the modern inclusion of social rights
(49:28):
in the proposed new post uprising Chilean constitution. You can
find more of us that happened here, pond on Twitter, Instagram.
And we have two new podcasts coming out. The first
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
(49:49):
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,
the first episode of the Great Margaret Enjoys new podcast,
Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff is dropping. It's about,
well what the title says, it's the coolest revolutionaries, desperadoes
and ordinary people in the right place and right time
(50:10):
doing extremely cool stuff. And it's happening every Monday and
Wednesday from here on out. So go give it. Listen
to the shops on May Day. It is going to
be great, and yeah, it is. It is. It 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. It could happen here as a
(50:31):
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.
Welcome to It could happen here a podcast that you
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, so you probably
know what it's about. If you don't, it's about things
falling apart and then putting it back together again. And
today we are doing a historical things trying to go
(00:26):
back together and then fell apart again episodes and with me,
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
(00:50):
on a few other episodes that that we've done about
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. It's tension in the sort
of mainstream like left analysis of what happened to all
End and what was going on in that period. Which
is the Cordonas. And Nick has written about this a
(01:12):
lot and is also writing more about this, and it
is doing research. Actually, do do do you do you care?
Do you mind if I mentioned that you're in chileading
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 is is different
(01:34):
about it than a lot of the the stuff that
you'll read about all End and about the Cordonas 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 to this sort
(01:55):
of revolutionary moment. Yeah, that's great. I mean, I think
it's important that we start at an earlier moment to
really understand how the Cordonas emerge as a specific um culture,
a specific urban space across the city of Santiago. Uh.
You know, the English translation of the Cordonas industrialist would
(02:16):
essentially just be industrial belts. 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. You know, over the course
(02:39):
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 history of Chile UH.
(03:02):
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 to do for Santiago
(03:25):
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 Santiago itself. Uh.
(03:47):
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, a lot is happening. Uh.
(04:07):
Primarily you have the sort of twin processes of industrialization,
sort of rapid industrialization that's taking place, which 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. And you're having sort of two factors at
(04:30):
play in this miggration. 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 sort of infrastructure that a city would
afford relative to the countryside. UH. And these two processes
(04:54):
sort of come to a head in the nineteen fifties
UM in Chile, and by the end of the nineteen
fIF these UH it's clear to a growing set of people, UM,
including Juan Pariochia, who is an architect, UM, that something
needs to be done. There needs to be a new
urban plan for the city of Santiago UH. And this
(05:14):
urban plan what they try to do is it's the
first time that there's a sort of intercommunal which communal
in the 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 the first time that this word
(05:34):
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 intervening years from the early
(05:55):
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 industry.
They want it further on the periphery. Uh. And so
that's part of this urban plan that essentially tries to
zone basically zone um these uh, these sectors. And so
(06:20):
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, how did they then
give rise to an urban culture that will then manifest
(06:43):
itself in a very revolutionary moment once 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 as happens really across the world.
(07:03):
But mostly after that period and that that that's 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, in like the nineteen eighties, or is it
closer to well, you know, I've talked I've talked about this,
(07:26):
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 a different kind of um like relation, I mean,
(07:47):
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, you know, just outside the city of
Santiago is is still largely rural. Right where where the
first cordon will emerge on the southwestern side of the
city is still a largely rural part of the city itself. Uh.
(08:14):
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, 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
(08:36):
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,
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,
(08:59):
So they're moving then to the same areas. So in
some senses, the sort of historical dynamics of the region
are undercutting the sort of success of the planners when
it comes 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
(09:19):
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
have this kind of vailing 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
(09:41):
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.
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 and think about this historiographically, Uh,
(10:02):
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, 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,
(10:24):
from a sociological point of view, right, um. And the
reason this is 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 social concern and
the social movement that is bound up or known as
the sort of pueblad or movement, is a movement for housing. Right.
(10:46):
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 poma or seizure right. And so what they
will do when they arrive in these places of land
is that they will seize these lots and they will
(11:08):
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,
that's what they would leverage them as a claim for that.
(11:29):
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 they're
moving to the cities and you know, moving into what
(11:51):
would be referred to as either complimentos or probationists. 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 with the older generation of
migrants that migrated from the north of Chile, right from
(12:13):
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 Churle, Chile, which, following the development
of sort of synthetic forms of explosives, nitrates are not
saltpeter specifically, is not as high in demand anymore. So
(12:34):
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 and
they're sort of mixing in these areas in specific, and that,
(12:57):
to me is why it's so important to think about
the cordonus is more than just an organization that emerges
in the early nineteen seventies and really think about them
as a space, as a geographic space that developed their
own unique forms of local culture informed by these larger,
more macro historical processes. Yeah. That that that that seems
(13:20):
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 fact that, Yeah,
the fact that you have multiple different essentially like you
(13:41):
have you have multiple difference so it 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 like
the late nineteen sies, early nine seventies is like the
olden age of the factory occupation, and I think, you know,
(14:03):
I think you can draw similarities between that and between
the Cardonis, 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 similar dynamic of you get you get
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 know, you have this
(14:24):
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 is like a distinct product of like this
exact configuration of of so social class is hitting each
(14:46):
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 market work the 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
(15:08):
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 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
(15:30):
dominant over the countryside, um? And things like that. But
I think it's different, or not necessarily different, but perhaps
unique in the Chilean case, um, is that this is
a you know, you have a culture in Chile that
is known world over for its political culture. Right, everyone
(15:51):
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, 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
(16:12):
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 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.
(16:34):
That's what's going to make the end a government so
unique in this moment um. But what also makes the
court bonus unique is this sort of relationship between social
space and physical space in the city. So, for example,
the very first court zone that emerges in nineteen two
Studios Maipoo, as I mentioned earlier, on the southwest of
the city. That one, as I mentioned, because it had
(16:57):
such close contact with the old sector on that edge,
had a lot more solidarity between world laborers and factory laborers,
such that by ninety 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
(17:20):
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 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
(17:42):
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,
is what is the role of the Catholic Church here? So,
for example, the Catholic Church history really within the and
within the historiography as well, UM has always been associated
(18:05):
with the public door 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 the population, you know, poor 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
(18:28):
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 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.
(18:50):
And in the case of the Quamacina 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 was was fundamental in helping some of the workers
established unions uh in in the cordon. So, for example,
the Sumar Textile factory, which was functionally a city unto itself.
(19:12):
This this textile company had a series of different factories
within its property. So it had a cotton plant, it
had 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 UH in Chile. In
the labor code in Chile from the nineteen thirties, there
(19:34):
were two different types of unions per factory or per plant.
You had the industrial union, which we could think of
as the 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,
(19:55):
not so much the manual labors, but everyone else in
the factory and in the case of Sumar specifically the
cotton plant itself. UM in the late nineties sixties, when
they're 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
(20:15):
on it. They don't have their own local yet because
they haven't founded union. And so what they ultimately do
is they reach out to the parish priest in San Kayatano,
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
(20:37):
major role both in the cor bonus 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
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
(21:08):
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,
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 takes this like very hard left
(21:29):
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 literally
doing kidnappings of like random government officials. And I think, yeah,
I guess in in in in this context, what what's
(21:58):
interesting to me, I guess is yeah, like how how much? Okay, So,
like what is the the you're you're talking You're talking
about the sort of like the sort of pastoralism of
this this sort of like social gospel message. Is there
is there like a divide between the way the church
is working in the city and the ways working in
the countryside or is it just sort of like it's
(22:21):
all shifting left but they're more the influence of the
church is larger in among sort of real and extoral 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,
(22:42):
and so that's actually the documents that I'm sort of
sifting through as 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 Santia, you know, uh,
you know, in the region itself. Following Vatican to you
(23:04):
have the Episcopal Conference of Latin America's second conference that
takes place in the nineteen sixties in Median 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
(23:26):
to fit its own pastoralism, its own sort of pastoral
plan 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,
(23:47):
amongst the church hierarchy here that UM are very you know,
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
(24:08):
just sort of accepted wholesale by the church in Latin America. Well,
a lot of the documents that I'm encuntering 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
(24:29):
Church as a global institution and Marxism as a global
ideology are scene as antithetical. And here the idea that
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
(24:51):
religion that comes out of the early form of Marxism
Leninism from early twentieth century. And so there's a great
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
(25:14):
will use. But the other big thing that comes out
of this in addition to this sort of discourse of liberation,
is this new idea of UM Catholic base 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
(25:37):
the hierarchy of the church. Right, you have the sort
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
(26:00):
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 say San Kayatano Parish and the work that
it's doing with workers and assume our factory and sort
of this has me thinking about, you know, what does
(26:22):
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 Socialists and the communist which
(26:43):
is you know, a majority of workers, the Christian Democrats
are also a large force. Right In nineteen sixty four,
President at what a praise 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
(27:06):
as to a revolution in liberty um, which is sort
of a communitarian reformism that is essentially seen as perhaps
forestalling Marxist revolution, a 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
(27:28):
party 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 wipocratic parties and you're up
there is very powerful Chusian depocratic parties like across Latin America. Yeah,
(27:50):
can we can we talk a bit about like what
that is and how that's different from like, you know,
how how it's different from just like your your generic
your generic 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, so
(28:11):
it does seem very foreign to us. Um. But really
with the sort of wager 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, but
(28:33):
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 stay a socialist or
a communist would believe in, you know. So, for a
(28:53):
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
(29:14):
a sort of radical communism, 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 an eradication
(29:37):
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 to talking about all End a briefly,
because I think that's an interesting and one of the
things you're talking about earlier is ill End talking about Okay,
well we can have a democratic path to socialism. And
(29:57):
what's what's very interesting to me about both Allende and
what's happening in the cordonation is that like, okay, so
like that that that is a that 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
(30:17):
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 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,
(30:40):
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 then the movement against sort of like
like you don't see an actual attempt to like eliminate
the 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
(31:03):
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,
(31:26):
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. She's still your boss, and that isn't what
(31:47):
happens in Chile, in in in in the in the
same way that Yeah, I'm interested, why why why why
this looks different here? I guess no, I think this
is a great question, you know, And so to to
get to end A, it is imperative that we start
with Fray in nineteen sixty four, and in some sences
(32:08):
we can start even in nineteen fifty seven, which is
End's first attempt at running for president UM. 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.
(32:30):
And this is 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 importorted. However, by the late nineteen fifties,
(32:54):
things have begun to bottleneck right, largely in the Chilian case,
because a lot of the countryside is still under control
of the Latin fundio of grand estate, right, 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
(33:15):
the development of capital goods in industry, right, and the
capital goods are what you need to really jump start
industry wholesale. 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 is essentially trying to first run on a
(33:38):
platform of industrialization and to 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, repress of labor in some senses, freezing
(34:02):
of any sort of gains of the labor movement, et cetera.
This ultimately does not work, right. And so in nineteen four,
you know, Shaker, you have calls then for a more
revolutionary approach. Well. Also, what's happening in nineteen sixty four,
right as we're now in the wake of the Cuban
Revolution which has taken place, which has put the America's
(34:24):
as a hemispheric designation unnoticed 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
(34:45):
then do is launched the Alliance for Progress, which is
essentially a way of funneling money into reformist minded governments
as a way to appease these calls for revolution UM,
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.
(35:09):
UM and Frey wins the nineteen sixty four election handily. Now,
there's a great debate to be had on whether or
not the or whether the involvement of the CIA 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 and to lead up to
(35:31):
the coup in the nineteen seventies. UM. You know, hopefully
one day we'll have a better sense of really what
went on that explains such a lot sighted defeat of
end 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 Alliance Progress UM.
(35:55):
Also the nationalization of copper, which will be fully nationalized
under a ENDE in THEES, but it actually exists in
a state of so called negotiating nationalization under Frey, or
what Fray would refer to as the Chileanization of copper,
in which Chile would take a very small fifty one,
(36:16):
you know percent controlling 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.
(36:38):
There there have been a lot of times with 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 Forum
in order to like stop and stop an actual revolution
from happening. So we'll do a sort of capital's version
of it. It's interesting to me that Chile does it
because I feel like that that's not something that happened
(36:59):
in to the other Latin American states whe the CIA
gets involved. Um. Yeah, well it's also I mean, the
Alliance for Progress is official government policy. Um. You know,
Kenny 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,
(37:20):
the Appliance 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
borne out as one of the successes insofar as it
is what initiates Theian reform in Chile. So so I
guess So, okay, So what you're saying is that there
(37:44):
are there there's there's there's a specific group of parties
at the u S backs at this period who are
trying to do this sort of who are trying to
do some kind of reform um like here, who are
trying to do this sort of like the class collaboration
reform to stave off revolution thing. And then I guess
the like later policy becomes just do the do kind
(38:05):
of insurgency on behalf of the landowners. Yeah, I mean
the way the Phray. 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
(38:28):
of the Chilean economy for 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, Fray thinks
that they can figure it out via these sort of reforms,
via the gray in reform. Be it the sort of
(38:49):
chileanization of the great minding wealth of the country. Uh,
in terms of factory or industry level. They essentially proposed
this idea of sort of workers enterprises is that is
somewhat modeled off the Yugoslavian model, which was a much
more communitarian um approach. Right as you were saying earlier,
you know, the boss is still there. Workers do have
(39:12):
a stake and control of the enterprise, um, but private
property still exists, right, 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
(39:32):
is like I don't know, like like a nineteen thirties
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 this is fascinating. In fact,
(39:55):
one of my sort of dream projects or sort of
dream archives to get into an old point of the
Yugoslavian archives or former Yugoslavian archives, because there is a
lot of collaboration taking place between the Yugoslavian left and
Chilians at this time. UM. The problem is that a
lot of this never really gets off the ground in practice.
(40:15):
It is a lot of 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
(40:35):
seventy campaign of Southern end Right. And this is what
really gets us to the to Ayenda's 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
(40:57):
part the month Um that really um solidifies or if
you will, sort of the final push um or loss
of legitimacy for the Free Administration, as well as a
pushing the sort of more popular classes to um be
opposed to the Free Administration, be opposed to sort of
the Christian democratic message of reformantism, and decides to sort
(41:22):
of give revolution a chance. Uh. And it's into that
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
(41:43):
a coalition of leftist parties, primarily the Socialists, of which
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. The
Communists are a much more um reserved approach to revolution,
(42:04):
and by which I mean they're very much um going
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 ends, with the INDs view of legislating socialism. That's
(42:30):
I guess another interesting aspect of this, because like that's
something I think also doesn't get discussed very much, which
is this period where like a lot of the like
that that was the party discipline being opposed from Moscow
for like a lot of this period like is explicitly
telling them, not like explicitly saying don't do a revolution
like hold and stabilize the situation. Um is that the case,
(42:53):
like so I because I I okay, this is this
is again going back to me knowing Italy but I
know um Chile. That is that something like how how
long has that been? Policy? Frow 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
(43:14):
like the muscle line flips back and forth somewhat randomly
depending on like what it's going, doesn't right, It flips
a lot, especially in that ninety 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 seven. Um, there is a meeting of the
(43:34):
Common Turn in nineteen fifty seven, and that's when the
idea of individual national roads to socialism becomes 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
(43:56):
to be a Cuban revolutionary model, UM, it be its own,
so that when Allende proposes 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 we
will tow that line throughout the three years, throughout the
(44:17):
thousand days of the end government, which will then ultimately
put them into conflict with the left wing of the
Socialist Party, which is pushing for a much more radical um,
a radical ship. And that's really the sort of context
that the cordon is emerge out of in nineteen seventy two,
is the sort of growing factionalism, growing secretary sectarianism within
(44:39):
the ruling coalition of the Popular Unity. Yeah, and I
guess this 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, yeah, I mean partially just yeah,
(45:01):
the influence of Yugoslavia is fascinating to me because I
mean that explained, that explains so much, right, Like that,
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 that these these multifaceted,
(45:24):
multi layer influences globally as well as locally within Chile
as well as regionally, UM produced 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 the nation, elected democratically in a free
(45:49):
and fair election that is not contested UM or anything
like that. 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 demand it to the Congress, and the Congress
typically will just rubber stamp the victory I end. However,
(46:13):
you know, there's a lot of apprehension about what he
means for the country, what he means for the sort
of landed deletes, what he means for the sort of
oligarchs that control the grand monopolies in Chile. Uh, and
so there is a lot of tension. Well, this is
also then where the actions the CIA backfire. UM. So
(46:34):
the work of the National Security Archive has done great
work for uncovering the sort of two track plan that
Nixon and Kissinger have for subverting the election of A
and A 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
(46:55):
they attempt to foment involves General Renee Schneider, and it
is the attempt is that 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.
(47:18):
Things can go haywire and Schneider is assassinated, he's shot
UM accidentally and player 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 Allende and it has
(47:38):
decided that they will approve his um candidacy, his election,
and that he will be affirmed as the president um.
And you know, 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 a platform in the
(48:01):
popul Unities case was what they referred to as the
sort of basic agreement between the coalition and the both
the people of Chile 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,
(48:22):
any sort of economic restructuring that they would achieve or
that they would try to achieve in Chile would be taken,
would take place, would be used or one through the
halls of Congress. Right, everything would be legislated. Everything would
still be remain um the sort of Chilean government as normal. Right.
(48:43):
This is where you get all ends famous phrase that
the revolution is going to be with infoto us and
bainto right, with meat pies and red wine um, which means,
you know, 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.
(49:06):
This has when it could happen here. Join us tomorrow
for part two of this interview, where we walk through
the Chilean Revolution, the Cordones, and their lasting ImpACTA in society.
If you 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 dignified life to the modern inclusion of social rights
(49:28):
in the proposed new post uprising Chilean constitution. You can
find more of us that happened here, pond on Twitter, Instagram.
And we have two new podcasts coming out. The first
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
(49:49):
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,
the first episode of the Great Margaret Enjoys new podcast,
Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff is dropping. It's about,
well what the title says, it's the coolest revolutionaries, desperadoes
and ordinary people in the right place and right time
(50:10):
doing extremely cool stuff. And it's happening every Monday and
Wednesday from here on out. So go give it. Listen
to the shops on May Day. It is going to
be great, and yeah, it is. It is. It 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. It could happen here as a
(50:31):
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.
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