Anarchism in Chile
The anarchist movement in Chile emerged from European immigrants, followers of Mikhail Bakunin affiliated with the International Workingmen's Association, who contacted Manuel Chinchilla, a Spaniard living in Iquique.
Some of the most prominent Chilean anarchists were: the poet Carlos Pezoa Véliz, the professor Dr Juan Gandulfo, the syndicalist workers Luis Olea, Magno Espinoza, Alejandro Escobar y Carballo, Ángela Muñoz Arancibia, Juan Chamorro, Armando Triviño and Ernesto Miranda, the teacher Flora Sanhueza, and the writers José Domingo Gómez Rojas, Fernando Santiván, José Santos González Vera and Manuel Rojas.
During the French Revolution of 1848, a number of Chilean radicals visited Paris, where they became acquainted with the mutualism of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon and the Christian socialism of Félicité de La Mennais.
The mutualist movement quickly formed a counterculture in Chile, believing that capitalism could be replaced peacefully through institutions of dual power.
[4] General unions engaged in conflict with the older and newer benefit societies, which had been in existence since the mid-nineteenth century, and which they considered incapable of defending the interests of the working class.
[5] This context of a growing working-class movement set the basis for the emergence of co-operatives, which adopted a strictly defensive position despite their anarcho-syndicalist inspiration.
[6] One of the first conflicts triggered by the anarchists was "the Great Boatmen Strike" of 1890, which took place in Iquique, Antofagasta, Valparaíso, Concepción and other smaller ports.
The anarchist newspaper El Alba condemned the acts in an edition released in October 1905: "The people have been assassinated with rage and malice by the young horde of the bourgeoisie.
It was there that the army fired into the crowd that had gathered in Santa María square, killing around 3000 people, among them workers, women, and children.
The government decided to form a "Housing Board" to solve conflicts between tenants and owners, an arrangement that was supported by the communists.
12927, dictated on the "Inner Security of the State", amended on several occasions and prevailing to the present day, sanctions any act of insurrectionist or revolutionary nature.
[10] After the coup d'état of general Augusto Pinochet, a repressive wave was triggered against all the left wing, including the few individual anarchists who still existed.
In 1975, the Committee of Defense of Human rights (CODEH) was reactivated by Clotario Blest and Ernesto Miranda, which would become of vital importance for those persecuted by the dictatorship.
Diverse and decentralised collectives and individuals try to disseminate anarchist ideas and practices through squatting, cultural activities, strikes, and protests.
[20] Similarly, the Mapuche conflict as a struggle for political, economic, and territorial autonomy is supported by other anarchist movements worldwide.
[21] The Mapuche struggle, by anarchist principles, fundamentally objects to the state and questions the legitimacy of the Chilean Republic as the successor to the colonial sovereign.
[22] One of the first victims in the clashes with the police after the return to democracy was anarchist dance student Claudia López Benaiges, who died due to the action of the state security forces during the disturbances of September 1998.
[25] In August 2010, in the so-called "Bombs Case", the squatter house Sacco y Vanzetti was raided and 14 people were arrested, including anarchists, anti-authoritarians and Marxists.
[28] In November 2013 some young anarchists acquitted in the "Bombs Case" were arrested in Spain accused of installing explosive devices at Cathedral-Basilica of Our Lady of the Pillar injuring a woman.
