Speaker 1: Hey everybody, Robert Evans here, and I wanted to let
Speaker 1: you know this is a compilation episode. So every episode
Speaker 1: of the week that just happened is here in one
Speaker 1: convenient and with somewhat less ads package for you to
Speaker 1: listen to in a long stretch if you want. If
Speaker 1: you've been listening to the episodes every day this week,
Speaker 1: there's gotta be nothing new here for you, but you
Speaker 1: can make your own decisions. Hey, everybody, this is it
Speaker 1: could happen here. I am Robert Evans. This is a
Speaker 1: podcast about things falling apart and sometimes how to put
Speaker 1: them back together. Today this is another episode about the
Speaker 1: war in Ukraine. UM. It's going to be eventually an
Speaker 1: interview with a Ukrainian anarchist militant who is fighting on
Speaker 1: behalf of of of Ukrainian people UM in that conflict.
Speaker 1: But here's a little introduction first. So anarchists are all
Speaker 1: about the elimination of hierarchy, and since the state tends
Speaker 1: to be the hierarchy ist thing around, most anarchist act
Speaker 1: this tend to either seek the destruction of the state
Speaker 1: or at least snatches of a life lived beyond its bounds.
Speaker 1: The most joyful moments, and anarchist organized protests tend to
Speaker 1: be those brief liberatory windows where anything seems possible, and
Speaker 1: even say middle class suburban moms might feel briefly like
Speaker 1: they could tear down the walls of a federal courthouse.
Speaker 1: So the idea of anarchists joining and fighting in a
Speaker 1: national military, commanding and being commanded in the hierarchy of
Speaker 1: the state's defense forces feels like a pretty big contradiction. Yet,
Speaker 1: when the Russian Federation launched a massively expanded invasion of
Speaker 1: Ukraine in February two, many Ukrainian anarchists announced their intention
Speaker 1: to fight on the side of their government. Organizations like
Speaker 1: rev DIA formed militias which have been integrated into Ukrainian
Speaker 1: territorial defense forces. In one statement I found on the
Speaker 1: website enough is Enough, a militant representing rev DEA explained
Speaker 1: their feelings this way, Ukrainian anarchists are at war with
Speaker 1: Russian expansionism, fascists, and the government. They have created their
Speaker 1: own arm and call on us to join them. Every
Speaker 1: anarchist collective and organization that understands the revolutionary task and
Speaker 1: the internationalists struggle must transform its general anti war position
Speaker 1: into a position of engagement by participating in or strengthening
Speaker 1: the anarchist Ukrainian guerilla struggle without suspensions and by attacking
Speaker 1: the Russian economic and political power. Victory in arms for
Speaker 1: the anarchists in Ukraine who stand against Russian imperialism, fascist
Speaker 1: paramilitary groups and the democratic government in Kiev. Solidarity with
Speaker 1: the Russian and Belarusian anarchists who are crawling in the
Speaker 1: democratic dungeons trying to stop the war. Let us give
Speaker 1: space to the people and not to the imperialist dreams
Speaker 1: that divide the planet into plots. We are forever with
Speaker 1: the invisible people of the world who are fighting for
Speaker 1: an inclusive, self organized and anti hierarchical world. So anarchists
Speaker 1: with Reveda and other Ukrainian organizations are very much acting
Speaker 1: in line with more than a century of anarchist tradition
Speaker 1: in Ukraine. During the Russian Revolution, famed Ukrainian anarchist war
Speaker 1: lord Nestor Makno was forced to make a tough decision.
Speaker 1: Ukrainian nationalists threatened the central government that had arisen after
Speaker 1: the fall of the Czar, and Makno and his comrades
Speaker 1: decided to defend the democratic socialist government against the nationalists
Speaker 1: from the book Anarchy's Cossack quote. That decision faced the
Speaker 1: local anarchists with a problem, for it had them support
Speaker 1: governmental forces here, which, even if they were of the left,
Speaker 1: were nonetheless potential enemies of the masses. Autonomy Makno reckoned
Speaker 1: at the time that as anarchists, we must, paradox or
Speaker 1: no paradox, make up our minds to form a united
Speaker 1: front with the governmental forces, keeping faith with anarchist principles.
Speaker 1: We will find a way to rise above these contradictions,
Speaker 1: and once the dark forces of reaction have been smashed,
Speaker 1: we will broaden and deepen the course of the revolution
Speaker 1: for the greater good of an enslaved humanity. Roughly one
Speaker 1: month into the expanded Russian invasion, I had the chance
Speaker 1: to sit down and interview an anarchist in Ukraine who
Speaker 1: was participating in the resistance to Putin's regime. We conducted
Speaker 1: our interview over the course of several days as his
Speaker 1: fighting schedule allowed, and we did so over voice messages
Speaker 1: in signal. His audio quality was thankfully quite good. I
Speaker 1: have condensed some bits of the interview, particularly my questions,
Speaker 1: to make things easier to understand, and I moved some
Speaker 1: stuff around a little bit. I hope this is still
Speaker 1: pretty clear. Now here's our source introducing himself. What I
Speaker 1: would start you to tell about my story is um,
Speaker 1: let's call me Iliah. I am an anarchist from some
Speaker 1: neighboring country, but live in Ukraine for civilary several years.
Speaker 1: I had to leave my homeland because of the political
Speaker 1: repressions against anarchists there ah and for me participation in
Speaker 1: this conflict. It has several dimensions, uh once like the
Speaker 1: the first and simplest thing is that Ukraine, even though
Speaker 1: it's like highly imperfect state like with clear new liberal
Speaker 1: stuff and some nationalists and var right influences in the politicum,
Speaker 1: but still is more like gray zone and more like
Speaker 1: um how to say, pluralistic and free space. The state
Speaker 1: here has much less control than in Russia and Belarus,
Speaker 1: for example. I wanted to start by asking them about
Speaker 1: the elephant in any room where people are discussing left
Speaker 1: wing resistance in Ukraine, the neo Nazi as Off battalion.
Speaker 1: I've think it's important for people to like just talk
Speaker 1: about as Off and and and whatnot, and not whitewash
Speaker 1: what's going on. There, But it strikes me that they
Speaker 1: have a really effective social media campaign and they're they're
Speaker 1: sneaking a lot of videos and a lot of combat
Speaker 1: footage and whatnot out into kind of Western mainstream media
Speaker 1: without people realizing Nazis Well. To be honest, of course, uh,
Speaker 1: far right movement is much more massive in Ukraine than
Speaker 1: any libertarian leftist movements at the moment. This I think
Speaker 1: is obvious for you. But at the same time, sometimes
Speaker 1: conscious or unconscious pro Russian propagandists try to portray the
Speaker 1: situation as if it is Nazi state or something like
Speaker 1: all the resistance is far right or something, but actually
Speaker 1: general part of the state. And also, which is more important,
Speaker 1: of the grassroots popular resistance is just a political in
Speaker 1: sense that like most of the army, are not in
Speaker 1: the politics, even though of course we aware that army
Speaker 1: is political institution itself, uh, and especially all those people
Speaker 1: in the villages who are now taking up arms to
Speaker 1: guard their lands against the occupiers, they are also not
Speaker 1: politicularly affiliated. Somehow, Ilia and many of his comrades see
Speaker 1: anarchist participation in the struggle against Russia as necessary for
Speaker 1: two reasons. The most basic is that Putin's regime is
Speaker 1: a threat to their life and freedom to the secondary
Speaker 1: reason is that if they don't fight, they will have
Speaker 1: no ability to influence what happens in their country after
Speaker 1: the war. Today. This invasion, it really constructs the threat
Speaker 1: for the whole existence of this society, more society than
Speaker 1: to the states itself, because this is a kind of
Speaker 1: attempt to export this totalitarian hell which are constructed in
Speaker 1: Russia more or less. And to confront this just not
Speaker 1: let it happen is already a task I think. But
Speaker 1: of course to come to to defend some land against
Speaker 1: some occupation, for me is too simplistic for the anarchist
Speaker 1: and revolutionary approach. So there come like more detailed reason reasons.
Speaker 1: I would say, first of all, I really believe that
Speaker 1: if Putting will be confronted intensively and successfully here, then
Speaker 1: it's very possible that it will break the spine of
Speaker 1: this regime in Russia, which may lead to revolutionary changes
Speaker 1: both in Russia and Belarus, because Belarusian dictatorship exists, like
Speaker 1: realize very much on put In support and so on. Uh.
Speaker 1: And another dimension is that any force which wants to
Speaker 1: be like really politically meaningful in Ukrainian society should take
Speaker 1: sides in this conflict. All people who say some dogmatic
Speaker 1: things like we are against all states again or worse,
Speaker 1: this is not enough. Now, this is not a position
Speaker 1: now uh. And now this is really popular resistance. Like
Speaker 1: if you do not, if you do not join it
Speaker 1: for whatever reasons, then you exclude yourself from actual political
Speaker 1: process because the main questions will be like where are
Speaker 1: you and where were you in these events? And of
Speaker 1: course the right side is to confront this imperialist occupation. Uh.
Speaker 1: This can really give an opportunity to like for future
Speaker 1: and not not for future, actually already today for organizing
Speaker 1: and mobilization of revolutionary libertarian forces UM and constructing ourselves
Speaker 1: as some considerable significant movement. Like for example, now there
Speaker 1: is this unit of territorial self defense which enarchies participate
Speaker 1: in actively. UM. This is now already around fifty people. Well,
Speaker 1: it was unlike unimaginable the recent years and months to
Speaker 1: have some gathering of fifty enarchy antifascialists and so on
Speaker 1: as some joint unit. But now this is the reality,
Speaker 1: and this mobilization is made because of this invasion. Actually,
Speaker 1: so this is something that makes sense. Ut my opinion,
Speaker 1: and another interesting thing I think in context of comparing
Speaker 1: for example UH far left and far right participating in
Speaker 1: Ukrainian political life and the current events, that of course
Speaker 1: for us any collaboration with the state is much more
Speaker 1: problematic than for the Nazis, because even they're like UM
Speaker 1: ideology and mindset, as far as they can evaluate, it
Speaker 1: pretty allows them both any relations with the state structures
Speaker 1: and also any dirty schemes both with the state, with
Speaker 1: the business and with criminal sphere. Like UM UH, our
Speaker 1: approaches are much more puristic, which is partly good of course,
Speaker 1: but also have some consequences for us to be much
Speaker 1: less adoptable as the movement to the real social, political,
Speaker 1: economical realities. And for example, now currently this is still
Speaker 1: a question for anarchists should we join, for example, the
Speaker 1: Territorial Defense UH forces, which is even though somehow militia
Speaker 1: like localized institution, but still of course like state affiliated
Speaker 1: force orchestrated and arranged by the state and subordinated to
Speaker 1: state army hierarchical system UM. But we still believe that
Speaker 1: in current events UM this participation like it UH less
Speaker 1: compromise us, but more give us the tools to organize
Speaker 1: to get experience and to get subjectivity, if we can
Speaker 1: say so in English, like to to to become really
Speaker 1: an actor. UM. And still this, within this frame is
Speaker 1: still possible to maintain UM political independence and even some
Speaker 1: sort of structural independence. So this is not just people
Speaker 1: are going and joining the army and that's it. They
Speaker 1: are now just units UM at least up to the moment.
Speaker 1: This is not our story and this is something at
Speaker 1: least me personally reflecting on a lot. First, I would
Speaker 1: like you mentioned you came to Ukraine from a neighboring
Speaker 1: country where repression of anarchists was more severe. I am
Speaker 1: interested prior to, you know, this stage of the invasion.
Speaker 1: Obviously the first invasion happened, but prior to this escalation,
Speaker 1: how would you describe state repression against anarchists in Ukraine,
Speaker 1: the degree to which anarchist organizing was opposed by the state,
Speaker 1: by the police in Ukraine. UM. And then the follow
Speaker 1: up question to that would be, as you guys saw
Speaker 1: this war building, could you elaborate on some of the
Speaker 1: discussions that happened about what to do, about whether or
Speaker 1: not to form militious whether or not or to what
Speaker 1: extent to fight alongside the government. UM. So about state
Speaker 1: repressions against the anarchists in Ukraine in recent years, I
Speaker 1: would say that they were, of course UM much less
Speaker 1: hard than for example, in Belarus and Russia. UH. Also
Speaker 1: because like for different reasons, because of in general of
Speaker 1: course more pluralist political culture and political situation in Ukraine,
Speaker 1: but also partly because the anarchist movement in after my
Speaker 1: Dan period was not that organized and not that combative
Speaker 1: to really draw drive attention of the state to itself.
Speaker 1: And also what I need to say that in maybe
Speaker 1: two thousand nineteen and twenty, this attention grew dramatically after
Speaker 1: several direct actions were taken by anarchists, for example, some
Speaker 1: sabotage against UH cell phone towers of some Turkish affiliated
Speaker 1: company when Turkey invaded Rojava in UH the late autumn
Speaker 1: of two thousand nineteen and often and also several actions
Speaker 1: against some police stations UH. Some of these statements were
Speaker 1: placed in anarchist fighter website and telegram channel UH, and
Speaker 1: so police and secret services got, how to say, very
Speaker 1: energetic in their attempts to find the people who did this,
Speaker 1: even though they didn't succeed. Actually, so several house rates
Speaker 1: taking place. They also tried to depart one anarchist from Belarus,
Speaker 1: Alexey Brenkov, who UH stayed in Ukraine for several years
Speaker 1: while decided to move out from Lukashenko regime and so UH.
Speaker 1: But they didn't depart actually, and also their house rates
Speaker 1: were not successful, so they didn't succeed in the in
Speaker 1: their repressions. So in the last couple of this picture,
Speaker 1: UH would say vegetarian picture of zero attention of the
Speaker 1: state to anarchist movement. It changed, so it started to
Speaker 1: be like a different way before it actually also was
Speaker 1: some direct actions believed to be related with revolutionary action
Speaker 1: anarchist group. It was if I am not mistaken around
Speaker 1: to Southern seventeen and so on. UH. And this also
Speaker 1: verse somehow UM prosecuted by by Ukrainian secret services. Also
Speaker 1: about organized participation of different anarchist faction UH in the
Speaker 1: current resistance against the Putting East imperialist aggression. Like about
Speaker 1: the most organized initiative you all in most numbered you
Speaker 1: already know, but there are several others, smaller groups like
Speaker 1: more like affinity groups or several friends participating in different units.
Speaker 1: We even cannot count it because we even don't know
Speaker 1: about everyone who participate. At this point, he started talking
Speaker 1: about an anarchist militant named Igor wala Chow, who had
Speaker 1: been killed by a rocket in Kharkiv a few days earlier.
Speaker 1: Before the war. Wala Chow had expressed a desire to
Speaker 1: organize a network of co ops across Ukraine. He had
Speaker 1: also been active in providing support for anarchists jailed in Russia.
Speaker 1: Ilia referred to him as having been martyred. He was participating,
Speaker 1: I don't know, either individually or with some of his
Speaker 1: friends from Karkiv, but for example, I knew nothing about
Speaker 1: their group and their participations. There is also Black Flag,
Speaker 1: anarchist group from Reliev which now as far as I know,
Speaker 1: participating in territorial self defense of Kiev. At least they
Speaker 1: released several photos and some short statement. This is something
Speaker 1: organized which I know about, and apart from that, I know,
Speaker 1: just as I already Telt told you, several affinity groups,
Speaker 1: groups of friends. The overall picture he painted of anarchist
Speaker 1: resistance in Ukraine was extremely atomized, due in part to
Speaker 1: pre war concerns about avoiding state repression and the myriad
Speaker 1: doctrinal differences between different kinds of anarchists. The war seems
Speaker 1: to have had a catalyzing effect which has made larger
Speaker 1: militant anarchist organizing possible for the first time in recent memory.
Speaker 1: Eliah was cautiously optimistic about this, but he and his
Speaker 1: comrades also recognized a danger here. We are trying to
Speaker 1: avoid attention from the state services, from secret services, even
Speaker 1: though we still have to collaborate UH somehow with the
Speaker 1: military hierarchy and so on in this situation. But of
Speaker 1: course we understand that if we will attract undesirable attention,
Speaker 1: than probably some forces would try to destroy us or
Speaker 1: somehow assimilate subjugate us. None of these scenarios are good
Speaker 1: for us, and we aware of it. So we try
Speaker 1: to have some publicity and at the same time to
Speaker 1: act ourselves in the way which will not drive repressive
Speaker 1: attention to us. Like immediately. So up to now, within
Speaker 1: this frame of territorial defense UH and UH like some
Speaker 1: civil volunteer activities and some other quite conventional activities of
Speaker 1: participating in this conflict against the putting east Side, we
Speaker 1: believe that we can take the ground for the new
Speaker 1: conceptions and programs of lack of libertarian cause and also
Speaker 1: some organizational developments, some organized structure which are of course
Speaker 1: not necessarily should be illegal from from the very first steps,
Speaker 1: but to establish some organizational basis and maybe hopefully ideological
Speaker 1: basis which will help us to act more actively both
Speaker 1: during the war and after war. Could you go into
Speaker 1: a little more detail about the ways in which you
Speaker 1: all do your units do kind of interface with the state.
Speaker 1: I went on to ask how they organized their combat
Speaker 1: units and whether or not this reflected their broader beliefs
Speaker 1: about horizontal organizing. His basic answer was that the militias
Speaker 1: have to operate within a military command structure and thus
Speaker 1: have to be broadly organized in the same way conventional
Speaker 1: military units are. However, being a regular their life outside
Speaker 1: of battle was much less regimented than what regular soldiers experience.
Speaker 1: So about military hierarchy in general, of course, territory defense
Speaker 1: forces are set by the state and they are included
Speaker 1: into the general structure of a military hierarchy of regular army.
Speaker 1: In this sense, we are of course generally not autonomous,
Speaker 1: and what is what's been issued by superior command we
Speaker 1: should implement in life and should um fulfill these orders. However,
Speaker 1: now territorial defense forces I would not speak about all
Speaker 1: of them because I limited since the very start of
Speaker 1: war within my own experience with this unit. These forces
Speaker 1: have like a lot of time for constructing itself, like
Speaker 1: our internal life not that much regulated by the higher command.
Speaker 1: And also there is a sort of space of communication
Speaker 1: with some commanders which are a little bit higher than us.
Speaker 1: So we have like good people who our comrades, who
Speaker 1: set this opportunity for us to get organized within this
Speaker 1: frame of territorial defense. This was just our old friends
Speaker 1: who decided to join some territorial defense structure as officers
Speaker 1: already before uh this situation started to happen. Um So,
Speaker 1: I think these people do really good job, and they
Speaker 1: provide for us options to feel ourselves like comparatively free.
Speaker 1: Of course, not in operational sense, because uh, like operational
Speaker 1: frame is being set by the higher command and like
Speaker 1: as one picture, one scheme, and in this aspect we
Speaker 1: of course just the one of the elements of the
Speaker 1: general plan of the fighting. Uh they put in regime
Speaker 1: invasion here. Um so, I mean, yes, as a unit
Speaker 1: we are governed by the military command, but this is
Speaker 1: really rarely that we see anyone apart anyone of some
Speaker 1: officers or I don't know, generals or somebody else from
Speaker 1: above the military hierarchy. We here now occupied with the training,
Speaker 1: with the organizational constructing and with like improving our internal life,
Speaker 1: not being like really orchestrated by any military military hierarchy. People. Um,
Speaker 1: so what about internal structure. It is still supposed to
Speaker 1: be organized on the traditional army scheme, So every section
Speaker 1: has a commander, unit in general has a commander. And
Speaker 1: this is not an elected people. This is not like
Speaker 1: really controlled from from below people. Um. Maybe unfortunately or
Speaker 1: maybe this is necessary in the current situation. This is
Speaker 1: really hard to estimate to evaluate at the moment. Uh.
Speaker 1: In this manner, our internal structure in sense of like
Speaker 1: military structure is more or less traditional for the territorial defense.
Speaker 1: At the same time, of course, we have more democratic
Speaker 1: internal culture. In general territorial defenses people mostly organized on
Speaker 1: local basis and also out of volunteers. So people who
Speaker 1: came here are on their good will and not on
Speaker 1: some constrict conscription or some contract which gives you a
Speaker 1: certain money or privileges. So because of this, you already
Speaker 1: supposed to be somehow more free, uh and more up
Speaker 1: to express your opinions UM and so on. And of
Speaker 1: course we as somehow UM leftist affiliated anarchist unit. Of
Speaker 1: course we encourage the internal discussion. Everyone including all the
Speaker 1: commanders inside our regiment are subjects to critics and discussion UM,
Speaker 1: even though maybe final words in the operational questions are
Speaker 1: up to these people UH. And also it's important that
Speaker 1: we maintain a total political autonomy, in sense that all
Speaker 1: the groups and individuals who constructs, who construct the unit
Speaker 1: we are part of, they like absolutely free to express
Speaker 1: their analysis, political analysis, and conceptual conceptualization of both these
Speaker 1: events and our participation in them, according to their like analysis,
Speaker 1: their attitude, and so on. I also asked what it
Speaker 1: was like to fight ostensibly on the same side as
Speaker 1: neo Nazi elements like ASOF. While Iliah and his unit
Speaker 1: are not anywhere close to the as OFF battalion, I
Speaker 1: wanted to know how he and his comrades dealt with
Speaker 1: the weird reality of being in the same broadside as
Speaker 1: people they might have battled in the street. At one point,
Speaker 1: I would say that before war, of course, there was
Speaker 1: a lot of tensions between UH fascists and US, not
Speaker 1: directly with us OFF, because as OF is um like
Speaker 1: military unit. Like this is not the guys you meet
Speaker 1: and fight in the streets, but of course there is
Speaker 1: like they tried to set like their own how to say, mafia,
Speaker 1: political empire I would call it, or mafia like they
Speaker 1: had some businesses, some criminal stuff, some patronage from the
Speaker 1: Interior Ministry uh and also very different how to say,
Speaker 1: far right groups which the leaders of so called as
Speaker 1: of movement, which is much broader than as of Battalion itself,
Speaker 1: they tried to utilized and instrumentalized to reach their own goals.
Speaker 1: And with some of these groups, so of course we
Speaker 1: had like just street fights for example, the elements closed
Speaker 1: to this as of movement, they try to influence a
Speaker 1: lot the Belarusian diaspora, like a position of diaspora in Kiev.
Speaker 1: For example, in the one year anniversary of the protests
Speaker 1: of twenty twenty in Belarus, there were there was fight
Speaker 1: in Kiev between anarchists who came to participate in demonstrations
Speaker 1: in this demonstration and the Nazis who attacked them in
Speaker 1: like aiming to somehow push them out from the Belarusian
Speaker 1: movement to influence it in their own way. Like also
Speaker 1: just usual street confrontation also took place. All this time
Speaker 1: there is quite visible and active Antifa movement in Kiev
Speaker 1: which confronted Nazis on the streets UH and blocked sometimes
Speaker 1: uh UM several of their like initiatives and so on.
Speaker 1: And also of course informational and propaganda struggle was held
Speaker 1: by us by us UH during all this time, since
Speaker 1: my then and of course before as well. About the
Speaker 1: current military situation, like, of course we are now actually
Speaker 1: part of one army with the right sector as of
Speaker 1: and so on. People, we are under the same military
Speaker 1: command UH, and if we will be tasked to fight
Speaker 1: in the same place the same enemy, we will be
Speaker 1: actually like the same UM like part of the barricade.
Speaker 1: But this situation we need to deal with. Like there
Speaker 1: are different opinions amongst our comrades, and here about as
Speaker 1: off and all the parietists, they differs from that they
Speaker 1: are actually our enemies like both now and also in
Speaker 1: any future Ukraine, in any future scenario. Because these people
Speaker 1: promote like quite obviously absolutely opposite political and social goals,
Speaker 1: then we UM other people say that another like other
Speaker 1: people say that now there how to say, general deadly
Speaker 1: threat we are facing and we should fight regardless of
Speaker 1: left and right and something like this to fight the
Speaker 1: imperialist invasion. But I personally me I do not support
Speaker 1: this second assumption and position. I see this quite not
Speaker 1: really politically smart at my opinion. But what we here
Speaker 1: can agree on is that if we want to confront
Speaker 1: uh Nazis UH and far right parts of the Ukrainian
Speaker 1: political and also military spectrum, then we need to develop
Speaker 1: our own strong structure, our own strong actor UH. And
Speaker 1: also this um somehow connected with the question about p
Speaker 1: R you mentioned that like we need our own pr,
Speaker 1: our own publicity and media work, and also our first
Speaker 1: of all, our own conceptions and ideological blueprints which we
Speaker 1: can um suggest to Ukrainian society and present both inside
Speaker 1: Ukraine and abroad. And this is the work, this is
Speaker 1: the challenge and duty which we need to fulfill and
Speaker 1: hopefully like not hopefully, but actually we are working on
Speaker 1: this already now. So if you want to combat us
Speaker 1: off now is UH not the time maybe to accuse
Speaker 1: them UH in some public statements, but this is time
Speaker 1: to develop alternative structure which will be able to really
Speaker 1: confront this reactionary currence. What it could happen here a podcast.
Speaker 1: Have heard me introduce like probably wow, probably like seventy
Speaker 1: or eighty times by now. But yeah, you you have
Speaker 1: heard me introduce this podcast enough times. You probably know
Speaker 1: what it's about. If you don't, it's about things following
Speaker 1: apart and then putting it back together again. And today
Speaker 1: we are doing a historical things trying to go back
Speaker 1: together and then fell apart again episodes And with me,
Speaker 1: I'm your host Christopher Wong, and with me is Nicholas Scott,
Speaker 1: who is a PhD candidate in Latin American history at
Speaker 1: u v A. Nicholas, Welcome to the show. Thank you
Speaker 1: so much for having me. It's a pleasure to be here. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm excited. I'm excited to have you. And today we're
Speaker 1: gonna be talking about something that we've we've mentioned before
Speaker 1: on a few other episodes that that we've done about
Speaker 1: Chile and about the all end a period. But I
Speaker 1: think like, well, we definitely have not given enough attention
Speaker 1: and I think gets less attention in the sort of
Speaker 1: mainstream like left analysis of what happened to Allende and
Speaker 1: what was going on in that period, which is the
Speaker 1: cordonas and Nick has written about this a lot and
Speaker 1: is also writing more about this and is doing research. Actually,
Speaker 1: do do you do you care? Do you mind if
Speaker 1: I mentioned that you're in chi leading research right now? No, totally. Um,
Speaker 1: you know that's where I am. I'm here two years
Speaker 1: after the pandemic took me away. I found being able
Speaker 1: to come back and resume my research. Yeah. And so, Nicholas,
Speaker 1: I think in your work. The thing that I think
Speaker 1: is is different about it than a lot of the
Speaker 1: the stuff that you'll read about I end in about
Speaker 1: the Cordonats is the sort of historicization of it. And
Speaker 1: so I won I was wondering if if we can
Speaker 1: start back, I guess in the sixties and talk a
Speaker 1: bit about the sort of political situation that gets you
Speaker 1: to this sort of revolutionary moment. Yeah, that's great. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think that it's important that we start at an
Speaker 1: earlier moment to really understand how the Cordonas emerge as
Speaker 1: a speci cific um culture, a specific urban space across
Speaker 1: the city of Santiago. Uh. You know, the English translation
Speaker 1: of the Cordons industrialist would essentially just be industrial belts.
Speaker 1: So you can think of these as sort of sectors
Speaker 1: of the city where the majority of sort of heavy
Speaker 1: industry had been based UM, and then these specters themselves
Speaker 1: were sort of roomnants of the nineteenth century UH, specifically
Speaker 1: the railroad lines that would UH sort of the main
Speaker 1: thoroughfares into the city of Santiago from the countryside. UM.
Speaker 1: You know, over the course of the early twentieth century,
Speaker 1: as you have the development of industry in in Chile
Speaker 1: and in Santiago specifically, these are the same areas then
Speaker 1: where these factories are are being developed because you have
Speaker 1: pre existing sort of transportation networks that they're able to
Speaker 1: take advantage of. UM. The problem is is that you know,
Speaker 1: industrialization happens sort of in fits and starts in the
Speaker 1: history of Chile UH. And the other sort of problem
Speaker 1: is the problem of transportation itself. So, for example, in
Speaker 1: the nineteen thirties, there's an urban plan that gets developed
Speaker 1: for Santiago Centro or the central part of Santiago, and
Speaker 1: they bring in an Austrian urban planner, Carl Bruner, to
Speaker 1: help with this UH. And while Carl Bruner essentially tries
Speaker 1: to do for Santiago UM what Hausman did for France, right,
Speaker 1: widen boulevards make the city more accessible to new forms
Speaker 1: of transportation, right, ideally the car buses, things of that nature.
Speaker 1: The problem is is that he limited his work and
Speaker 1: his studies, as I said, just to the center of
Speaker 1: Santiago itself. Uh. The other problem is that once Brunner
Speaker 1: leaves Santiago, the plan that's actually put into effect um
Speaker 1: isn't necessarily all of his plan. It was sort of
Speaker 1: a patchwork that legislators um sort of pick and choose
Speaker 1: from when they put this plan into effect. And so
Speaker 1: in between the thirties and the nineteen sixties, you know,
Speaker 1: a lot has had Uh. Primarily you have the sort
Speaker 1: of twin processes of industrialization, sort of rapid industrialization that's
Speaker 1: taking place, which you also have this other process, which
Speaker 1: is rural migration, sort of internal migration. And this isn't
Speaker 1: a process that's limited to just Chile, right, this is
Speaker 1: a region wide process that's happening all across Latin America.
Speaker 1: And you're having sort of two factors that play in
Speaker 1: this viggration. Right. You're having the push factor from the countryside, right,
Speaker 1: the lack of opportunity, lack of jobs, lack of secure
Speaker 1: employments um from the countryside. And then you're also having
Speaker 1: the poll factor, which is you know, these industries that
Speaker 1: are springing up in the city, as well as the
Speaker 1: sort of infrastructure that a city would afford relative to
Speaker 1: the countryside. UH. And these two processes sort of come
Speaker 1: to a head in the nineteen fifties UM in Chile,
Speaker 1: and by the end of the nineteen fifties UH, it's
Speaker 1: clear to a growing set of people UM, including jan Paiochia,
Speaker 1: who is an architect, UM, that something needs to be done.
Speaker 1: There needs to be a new urban plan for the
Speaker 1: city of Santiago UH. And this urban plan what they
Speaker 1: try to do is it's the first time that there's
Speaker 1: a sort of intercommunal which communal in this sense would
Speaker 1: be a rough translation to municipality UM in English. So
Speaker 1: it's really the first sort of inter municipal urban plan
Speaker 1: that tries to link networks together. And this is actually
Speaker 1: the first time that this word corbone industrial appears in
Speaker 1: like an official government document. Right. That's the first time UM,
Speaker 1: that urban planners themselves are thinking about zones of the
Speaker 1: city that are going to be specifically for industry. And
Speaker 1: so the idea is that they want to move a
Speaker 1: lot of the industry that has sprung up in those
Speaker 1: intervening years from the early twentieth century that was located
Speaker 1: more in the center of the city. They want to
Speaker 1: move it out of the center of the city, you know,
Speaker 1: largely for things of pollution, safety, all of the things
Speaker 1: that go along with heavy indust street. They want it
Speaker 1: further on the periphery. Uh. And so that's part of
Speaker 1: this urban plan that essentially tries to zone basically zone
Speaker 1: um these uh, these sectors. And so that's really where
Speaker 1: my disportation starts. That's where my research really sort of starts.
Speaker 1: The stories and um, the late nineteen fifties, early nineteen sixties,
Speaker 1: when these urban plans are taking effect. And so what
Speaker 1: I'm interested in then is, you know, how did the
Speaker 1: creation of these specific sectors of the city as industrial zones,
Speaker 1: how did they then give rise to an urban culture
Speaker 1: that will then manifest itself in a very revolutionary moment
Speaker 1: once end comes to power. Yeah, And I think that
Speaker 1: that's an interesting way to look at it because I think,
Speaker 1: you know, because the process of sort of industry moving
Speaker 1: from the center of the urban core outwards is something
Speaker 1: that happens it really across the world, but mostly after
Speaker 1: that period, and that that was one of the one
Speaker 1: of the things that struck me about it. That's interesting.
Speaker 1: I want to ask you about which is so to
Speaker 1: what extent is this Is this a different process than
Speaker 1: the kind of like, you know, the kind of suburbanization
Speaker 1: that you see of of industry in the US, for example,
Speaker 1: in like the nineteen eighties, or is it closer to well,
Speaker 1: you know, I've talked I've talked about this, I guess
Speaker 1: on the show in the Chinese context to where you
Speaker 1: have i mean mostly pollution stuff has seen like some
Speaker 1: industry sort of like I mean just literally getting pushed
Speaker 1: into into rural areas. Is it is it like is
Speaker 1: it like those same kind of impulses or is there
Speaker 1: a different kind of um like relation, I mean, like
Speaker 1: how far out of the city, Like is this stuff
Speaker 1: like getting pushed to That's a great question, It's a
Speaker 1: wonderful question. Um. And you know it is actually important.
Speaker 1: This is important to remember that at this time the
Speaker 1: city of Santiago, um, you know, just outside the city
Speaker 1: of Santiago is is still largely rural. Right where where
Speaker 1: the first cordon will emerge on the southwestern side of
Speaker 1: the city is still a largely rural part of the
Speaker 1: city itself. Uh. And so it is very similar to
Speaker 1: the dynamics that you're describing, and that it is pushing
Speaker 1: you know, away from where people are living, right, two
Speaker 1: more rural places where there is more land both to build, right,
Speaker 1: So there is the availability of space, but there's also
Speaker 1: less people living in that space. So from the planner's perspective,
Speaker 1: it's considered better because the sort of you know, chemical
Speaker 1: and heavy metal runoffs from a lot of the metal
Speaker 1: working factories, all of these things and the pollution from smokestacks, etcetera, um,
Speaker 1: you know, are less harmful. The problem then becomes, however, Um,
Speaker 1: the as I mentioned the rural migration and people that
Speaker 1: are migrating to the city. You know, there's not space
Speaker 1: in the center of the city for these people to live, right,
Speaker 1: so they're moving into the same areas. So in some senses,
Speaker 1: the sort of historical dynamics of the region are undercut
Speaker 1: the sort of success of the planners when it comes
Speaker 1: to making these zones away from the city itself. Um.
Speaker 1: And I guess I guess that that would be something
Speaker 1: also that that's interesting about this, which is that I
Speaker 1: think because like you know, the sort of like decentralization
Speaker 1: of industry and that the push into rural areas, I
Speaker 1: think largely did not produce a kind of like radical
Speaker 1: working class culture. But but but it seems like you
Speaker 1: have this kind of veiling factor here, which is that
Speaker 1: you have a bunch of people who are like who
Speaker 1: are who are coming into industrial work for the first
Speaker 1: time out of the countryside, which tends to be a
Speaker 1: very radical faction. Like is that one of the things
Speaker 1: that gives you this sort of radical culture instead of
Speaker 1: the kind of like total disintecreation of the class that
Speaker 1: you see in the sort of later versions of this.
Speaker 1: This is such a beautiful question, and this this question
Speaker 1: really lays the heart of my research. So if we
Speaker 1: scope out just for a bit and think about this
Speaker 1: historiographically in Chile, there is a vein of historiography that
Speaker 1: is very concerned with these rural migrants, which once they
Speaker 1: arrive in the city are referred to as pobladores right
Speaker 1: which we can roughly translate this sort of urban poor,
Speaker 1: right um. And they're considered a sort of capital s
Speaker 1: social subject that is distinct from a worker or from
Speaker 1: a working class um, from a sociological point of view,
Speaker 1: right um. And the reason this is because a lot
Speaker 1: of them. Um. While they are workers, you know, they
Speaker 1: are part of the working class. Functionally, they're sort of
Speaker 1: social concern and the social movement that is bound up
Speaker 1: or known as the sort of peblad or movement, is
Speaker 1: a movement for housing right. Because they are arriving at
Speaker 1: these sort of vacant parts of the city. Um, the
Speaker 1: they bring with them the sort of as you mentioned,
Speaker 1: their own histories of struggle from the countryside, of which
Speaker 1: the sort of main tactic is the toma or seizure right.
Speaker 1: And so what they will do when they arrive in
Speaker 1: these places of land is that they will seize these
Speaker 1: lots and they will erect a structure on it. In
Speaker 1: doing so, then they would use that to stake a
Speaker 1: claim to as a claim of property rights right, as
Speaker 1: a claim for their own proper home and everything that
Speaker 1: would go with it within um, within a city, infrastructure right, utilities, sewage, etcetera. Um,
Speaker 1: that's what they would leverage them as a claim for that.
Speaker 1: And so my project is essentially trying to break down
Speaker 1: this analytic barrier that has separated the popelador from the
Speaker 1: worker in the historiography, specifically in the historiography of things
Speaker 1: like the Cortonas and the popular Unity years during all
Speaker 1: end because as I mentioned, many of these people once
Speaker 1: they're moving to the cities and you know, moving into
Speaker 1: what would be referred to as either complimentos or potionists. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, they're looking for work, and they're finding work
Speaker 1: at a lot of these factories that are nearby where
Speaker 1: they're moving. Now. In doing so, however, they're coming into
Speaker 1: contact they're sort of mixing. Wi if the older generation
Speaker 1: of migrants that migrated from the north of Chile, right
Speaker 1: from the mining sector in the north of Chile following
Speaker 1: the Great Depression, which is the sort of historical birth
Speaker 1: of the labor movement in Chile, the nitrates sector um
Speaker 1: in the far north of cher Chile, which, following the
Speaker 1: development of sort of synthetic forms of explosives, nitrates are
Speaker 1: not saltpeter specifically, is not as high in demand anymore
Speaker 1: since you have a lot of people migrating to the
Speaker 1: city to begin working in the industries there, right. So
Speaker 1: those sort of older working class who also have their
Speaker 1: own sort of history of struggle, history of tactics, etcetera,
Speaker 1: and this newer form of worker there right are mixing
Speaker 1: and they're sort of mixing in these areas in specific
Speaker 1: and that, uh, to me, is why it's so important
Speaker 1: to think about the Cordons is more than just an
Speaker 1: organization that emerges in the early nineteen seventies and really
Speaker 1: think about him a a space, as a geographic space
Speaker 1: that developed their own unique forms of local culture informed
Speaker 1: by these larger, more macro historical processes. Yeah. That that
Speaker 1: that that seems like a much more I don't know
Speaker 1: if I don't know if productive is the right word,
Speaker 1: though it is, but I think, yeah, I think that
Speaker 1: is a better way of thinking about it than what
Speaker 1: you usually see, because yeah, that that kind of the
Speaker 1: fact that, Yeah, the fact that you have multiple different
Speaker 1: essentially like you have you have multiple difference is like
Speaker 1: sociological classes mixing. You have, you have their tactics sort
Speaker 1: of fusing, and that developing its own culture. That's that's distinct,
Speaker 1: I think from a lot of the you know, because
Speaker 1: this this this is a business a period of time
Speaker 1: like the late nineteen sixies, early seventies is like the
Speaker 1: golden age of the factory occupation. And I think, you know,
Speaker 1: I think you can draw similarities between that in between
Speaker 1: the don'tice, but I think, I don't know. I mean,
Speaker 1: it'll is a version of this that that that I
Speaker 1: know the best, and that one, I guess sort of
Speaker 1: also has a simpilar gynamic of you get you get
Speaker 1: a bunch of that, you have this mixing of of
Speaker 1: sort of the old urban working class, but that you
Speaker 1: have a bunch of um you have this huge labor
Speaker 1: migration from from the south, from the rural areas, that
Speaker 1: that mixes in there. And I'm wondering, I guess, like
Speaker 1: when when you talk about sort of the culture of this,
Speaker 1: how how much of that is something that you think
Speaker 1: is like a distinct product of like this exact configuration
Speaker 1: of of so social class is hitting each other, and
Speaker 1: to what extent it's kind of like a process that
Speaker 1: we've that you find in other places where you have
Speaker 1: you have these sort of market worker like first generation
Speaker 1: market worker basis hitting these sort of older industrial working classes. Yeah. No,
Speaker 1: I think that your spot on, right. I think that
Speaker 1: this is um a larger global history. Right, this is
Speaker 1: a moment in which you are having a lot of
Speaker 1: migration from countryside into the city worldwide. Right, you have
Speaker 1: a lot of French intellectuals at this moment thinking about
Speaker 1: sort of what does it mean that the city is
Speaker 1: perhaps becoming the new focus, the sort of new locusts
Speaker 1: of social movements and social actions. You know, what does
Speaker 1: it mean that the city is dominant over the countryside? Um?
Speaker 1: And things like that. But I think it is different,
Speaker 1: or not necessarily different, but perhaps unique in the Chilean case, um,
Speaker 1: is that this is a you know, you have a
Speaker 1: culture in Chile that is known world over for its
Speaker 1: political culture. Right, everyone at this moment was thinking and
Speaker 1: talking politically, uh, and talking about big you know, grand
Speaker 1: ideas of politics, not just you know, sort of everyday politics,
Speaker 1: but how did everyday politics inform these larger sort of
Speaker 1: social struggles. Right. This is still a moment when socialism
Speaker 1: is on the table, right, Um. And so you have
Speaker 1: you know, not that this is different than other places
Speaker 1: in the world. Clearly, as you mentioned, in Italy, socialism
Speaker 1: is very much still on the table. Communism is very
Speaker 1: much still on the table there as well, um. But
Speaker 1: in Chile, what is different is that there is this
Speaker 1: idea that one could perhaps legislate socialism, right, or that
Speaker 1: one could use the means of democracy to achieve socialism. Right.
Speaker 1: That's what's going to make the Illende government so unique
Speaker 1: in this moment um. But what also makes the courtons
Speaker 1: unique is this sort of relationship between social space and
Speaker 1: physical space in the city. So, for example, the very
Speaker 1: first court zone that emerges in nineteen two Studios Mai
Speaker 1: Poo as I mentioned earlier on the southwest of the city,
Speaker 1: that one, as I mentioned, because it had such close
Speaker 1: contact with the rural sector on that edge, had a
Speaker 1: lot more solidarity between rural laborers and factory laborers, such
Speaker 1: that by nineteen seventy three you have factory labors going
Speaker 1: out of their factory and helping world labors sees their
Speaker 1: properties and hold their properties um away from the landowners
Speaker 1: essentially right and claiming sort of a redistributive um you
Speaker 1: know land for those who work at type of strategy.
Speaker 1: This is say, different from the cordon that my dissertation
Speaker 1: is focused on Facuna Mcana, which, as as I mentioned,
Speaker 1: a much larger segment of popolodors living nearby it, right uh.
Speaker 1: And so you have a much larger solidarity between the
Speaker 1: popolodors and between factory workers. And what makes that even
Speaker 1: more unique in this case is the role of the
Speaker 1: Catholic Church, and this is really one of the sort
Speaker 1: of new things that my dissertation is trying to do
Speaker 1: is what is the role of the Catholic Church here. So,
Speaker 1: for example, of the Catholic Church historically within the and
Speaker 1: within the historiography as well, UM has always been associated
Speaker 1: with the popelodoor movement, right because of this sort of
Speaker 1: connection to the countryside, because of the churches sort of
Speaker 1: you know, missionary kind of work and going out into
Speaker 1: the population, you know, poorer populations, especially following Vatican to
Speaker 1: UM that in which they begin to sort of have
Speaker 1: more outreach into the poor sectors. UM. But it's never
Speaker 1: really seen or rather very few scholars have thought about
Speaker 1: or looked at what does this mean then for those
Speaker 1: individuals who may have lived in a position but who
Speaker 1: worked in a factory. In other words, what was the
Speaker 1: relationship between the sort of social pastoral message of the
Speaker 1: church and the sort of socialism of a factory worker. Uh.
Speaker 1: And in the case of the Aquamacina, there's actually very
Speaker 1: strong links here. So specifically, the San Kayatano parish, which
Speaker 1: is located just to the west of the Corvillone proper Um,
Speaker 1: was was fundamental in helping some of the workers established
Speaker 1: unions h and in the cordon. So, for example, the
Speaker 1: Sumar Textile factory, which was functionally a city unto itself.
Speaker 1: This this textile company had a series of different factories
Speaker 1: within its property, so it had a cotton plant, had
Speaker 1: a nylon plant, a silk plant that had a polyester plant,
Speaker 1: and each of these different plants than each had their
Speaker 1: own um unions. And in Chile, in the labor code
Speaker 1: in Chile from the nineteen thirties, there were two different
Speaker 1: types of unions per factory or per plant. You had
Speaker 1: the industrial union, which we could think of as the
Speaker 1: blue collar worker union, and then you had in platos union,
Speaker 1: which we can think of as a more white collar union.
Speaker 1: These would be the sort of professionals in the factory,
Speaker 1: the sort of technicians, uh, the engineers, right, not so
Speaker 1: much the manual labors, but everyone else in the factory
Speaker 1: and in the case of sum A specifically the cotton
Speaker 1: plant itself. Um in the late nineteen sixties, when they're
Speaker 1: trying to found their union for the first time, they
Speaker 1: don't have anywhere to go to find it, to to
Speaker 1: found it, right, because they can't do it in the
Speaker 1: factory itself, because management, the bosses will crack down on it.
Speaker 1: They don't have their own local yet because they haven't
Speaker 1: founded a union, and so what they ultimately do is
Speaker 1: they reach out to the parish priest in San Kayatano,
Speaker 1: who is you know, who offers them help and in
Speaker 1: doing so offers them a space to hold their first
Speaker 1: union vote. Uh. And that's actually how the Union of
Speaker 1: Sumar gets founded. Sumar will go on to play a
Speaker 1: major role both in the cordonus and then after the
Speaker 1: Cordonus during the dictatorship. It's a it's a very um,
Speaker 1: very important factory uh in this history. Um. But it's
Speaker 1: often overlooked that, you know, the church played a very
Speaker 1: fundamental role in the sort of larger history of the
Speaker 1: working class formation of the Sumar workers. I mean, it
Speaker 1: brings us to one of the things about this period
Speaker 1: that's I guess becoming to be better understood. But I
Speaker 1: think if you're a person who has not spent time
Speaker 1: looking at this might look kind of weird, which is that, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's just that the Catholic Church in this period in
Speaker 1: a in a lot of Latin America like takes especially
Speaker 1: Adican Tubia like it. It takes this like very hard
Speaker 1: left turn that yeah, I mean has all of these
Speaker 1: causes that like you know, like you get like the
Speaker 1: the Italian version of it, is like you get a
Speaker 1: bunch of priests who are just like like like clergyman
Speaker 1: literally doing kidnappings of like random government officials. And I think, yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess in in in in this context, what what's
Speaker 1: interesting to me, I guess is yeah, like how how much? Okay, So,
Speaker 1: like what is the you're you're talking You're talking about
Speaker 1: the sort of like the sort of pastoralism of this
Speaker 1: the sort of like social gospel message. Is there is
Speaker 1: there like a divide between the way the just working
Speaker 1: in the city and the ways working in the countryside
Speaker 1: or is it just sort of like it's all shifting
Speaker 1: left but they're more the influence of the church is
Speaker 1: larger in among sort of royal and natural people. That's
Speaker 1: actually really good question. And this is actually where I'm
Speaker 1: in the midst of sort of trying to figure this out. Specifically, UM.
Speaker 1: For the past three weeks, I've actually been working in
Speaker 1: the church archives here in Santiago, UM and so that's
Speaker 1: actually the documents that I'm sort of sifting through as
Speaker 1: as we speak. UM. And so one thing I can
Speaker 1: say for certain as of now, what I've been able
Speaker 1: to sort of uncover is that, you know, the Church
Speaker 1: was not homogeneous, and it certainly wasn't monolithic, not in
Speaker 1: Latin America and definitely not in Santiago. Uh, you know,
Speaker 1: in the region itself. Following Vatican to you have the
Speaker 1: Episcopal Conference of Latin America's second conference that takes place
Speaker 1: in the nineteen sixties in Medallian and that's where the
Speaker 1: sort of the idea of liberation theology is born. Right
Speaker 1: falling Median then in Chile, the the Episcopal Conference of
Speaker 1: Chile then is basically tasked with determining a way to
Speaker 1: fit its own pastoralism, its own sort of pastoral plan
Speaker 1: within these new structures that they are a party too,
Speaker 1: because they are part of this larger conference in Latin
Speaker 1: America itself. And so, you know, one thing that I
Speaker 1: have uncovered in the documents is that this is very
Speaker 1: much you begin to see a divide amongst the bishops,
Speaker 1: amongst the church hierarchy here that um are very you know,
Speaker 1: interested in following this new plan of action, but they're
Speaker 1: also wary of some of the discourse that is surrounding this.
Speaker 1: So one example that comes to mind here is the
Speaker 1: idea of liberation itself. Right, we often talk about liberation theology,
Speaker 1: and we often talk about it is that it was
Speaker 1: just sort of accepted wholesale by the church in Latin America. Well,
Speaker 1: a lot of the documents that I'm encountering here are
Speaker 1: there's a great debate over the use of liberations, specifically
Speaker 1: because the idea of liberation is so tied up with Marxism, right,
Speaker 1: and that is, you know, at this time, the Catholic
Speaker 1: Church as a global institution and Marxism as a global
Speaker 1: ideology are scene its antithetical. And here the idea that
Speaker 1: in the Church's view, at least from these documents, the
Speaker 1: idea of Marxism that it's talking about when it's using
Speaker 1: Marxism is very much the Soviet Union, Right, It's very
Speaker 1: much the sort of atheistic approach to the church to
Speaker 1: religion that comes out of the early form of Marxism
Speaker 1: Leninism from early twentieth century. And so there's a great
Speaker 1: debate on whether or not to use liberation. And ultimately,
Speaker 1: you know, those supporting this discourse went out um and
Speaker 1: and it is decided that liberation will be the words
Speaker 1: and the sort of discourse that the parish priests UM
Speaker 1: will use. But the other big thing that comes out
Speaker 1: of this in addition to this sort of discourse of liberation,
Speaker 1: is this new idea of UM Catholic based communities. Right,
Speaker 1: is this whole new framework for UM sort of understanding
Speaker 1: a Christian community. Right. Prior to this innovation of the
Speaker 1: base community, you know, a Christian community was defined by
Speaker 1: the hierarchy of the church. Right, you have the sort
Speaker 1: of congregation, you have your parishes, you have the different
Speaker 1: UM sort of structural and bureaucratic UH designations that sort
Speaker 1: of link from a parish upward UM to the sort
Speaker 1: of church hierarchy itself. But the based community essentially is
Speaker 1: saying that, you know, wherever a few people gather and
Speaker 1: are studying the Word of God or reading scripture or
Speaker 1: having theological debates, that that should be considered, you know,
Speaker 1: part of the church UM should be considered that part
Speaker 1: of the church. And so in that sense we can
Speaker 1: look at sasan Kayatano parish and the work that it's
Speaker 1: doing with workers and a sum Our factory and sort
Speaker 1: of this has me thinking about, you know, what does
Speaker 1: it mean you know, what do these based communities look
Speaker 1: like in practice? Is it possible for us to conceive
Speaker 1: of workers who are reaching out to their local priest
Speaker 1: for assistance as perhaps their own Christian based community or furthermore,
Speaker 1: you know, at this time in Chile, in addition to
Speaker 1: the leftist political parties the socialist and the communist, which
Speaker 1: is you know, a majority of workers, the Christian Democrats
Speaker 1: are also a large force. Right in nineteen sixty four,
Speaker 1: President at What Pray is elected as a Christian Democrat
Speaker 1: and he's the sort of what will initiate a process
Speaker 1: that will culminate with Allende's election in nineteen seventy UM,
Speaker 1: and by that I mean he initiates what he refers
Speaker 1: as to a revolution in liberty UM, which is sort
Speaker 1: of a communitarian reformism that is essentially seen as perhaps
Speaker 1: forestalling Marxist revolution, Socialist revolution from taking place, but it's
Speaker 1: incredibly popular amongst working class and workers UM. And the
Speaker 1: Christian Democrat party itself was a very wide ranging party
Speaker 1: that encompassed right wing elements but also left wing elements.
Speaker 1: Can we can we talk a bit a bit more
Speaker 1: about like what the Christian Christian Democrats are because this
Speaker 1: is a thing that like doesn't really exist anymore, but
Speaker 1: was I think like a very important player. Like I mean,
Speaker 1: there's there's there's very powerful topocratic parties and you're upre's
Speaker 1: very powerful Chusian depocratic parties like across Latin America. Yeah,
Speaker 1: can we can we talk a bit about like what
Speaker 1: that is and how that's different from like, you know,
Speaker 1: how it's different from just like your your generic your
Speaker 1: generic sort of socialist party, and how it's different even
Speaker 1: from your sort of like I don't know, you're like
Speaker 1: labor party social democrats. Yeah, no, I mean this is
Speaker 1: this is a great question, and you're right, this isn't
Speaker 1: something that is sort of exists in the present moment.
Speaker 1: So it does seem very foreign to us. Um. But
Speaker 1: really with the sort of way or that the Christian
Speaker 1: Democrats make is that you know, in theory, they agree
Speaker 1: for the need for structural change, right in theory, the
Speaker 1: alleviation of poverty, a more a more just distribution of wealth, right,
Speaker 1: But their ideas of justice and things, and this is
Speaker 1: where the Christianity part of the Christian Democrat comes in, right,
Speaker 1: is that it is justice as understood in a Christian
Speaker 1: sense of justice, right, not in a sort of more
Speaker 1: radical egalitarian sense of justice. That's stay a socialist or
Speaker 1: a communist would believe in, you know. So, for a
Speaker 1: socialist or a communist, the sort of motor of history
Speaker 1: is class struggle. Right. For a Christian democrat, the motor
Speaker 1: of history is God and his son Jesus Christ. Right,
Speaker 1: And that is the sort of would be I guess
Speaker 1: you could think of as the main difference. And then
Speaker 1: how that plays out in practical terms would be in
Speaker 1: a for a communist, for a socialist, right, you want
Speaker 1: a sort of radical communist some dictatorship of the proletariat.
Speaker 1: These types of forms are very stagist movement through history.
Speaker 1: For a Christian democrat, however, it's much more of a
Speaker 1: communitarian ethic. Right, It's much more of a harmonization between say,
Speaker 1: the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, rather than an overthrowing and
Speaker 1: an eradication of the bourgeoisie by the proletariat, as it
Speaker 1: would be for say a socialist or a communist. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I guess that that's something I want to like.
Speaker 1: I want to move a bit talking about all end
Speaker 1: a briefly, because I think that's an interesting one of
Speaker 1: the things you're talking about earlier is ill End talking
Speaker 1: about Okay, well we can have a democratic path of socialism.
Speaker 1: And what's what's very interesting to me about both Allende
Speaker 1: and what's happening in the Cordonas is that like, okay,
Speaker 1: so like that that that is a that idea has
Speaker 1: been around for a very long time, and like there
Speaker 1: are a lot of people who take power who are like, okay,
Speaker 1: we're taking an amocratic path of socialism. And then you know,
Speaker 1: like what a lot of whim are Like Germany right
Speaker 1: is ruled by by the German Social Democratic Party, and
Speaker 1: it's like, well you look at what they do and
Speaker 1: they're not really like socialist NG they're most I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, they're they're they're they're doing they're doing things
Speaker 1: like they're doing things like welfare reform. But that's a
Speaker 1: very different thing. Well, and you know, and you can
Speaker 1: see like the Labor Party in in in the UK,
Speaker 1: for example, well like okay, well the nationalized industries, right,
Speaker 1: but you you don't see the kind of movements against
Speaker 1: like the the you don't see the kind of movement
Speaker 1: against property and that the movement against sort of like
Speaker 1: like you don't see an actual attempt to like eliminate
Speaker 1: which was he as a class in the same way
Speaker 1: that you do about Chile. And so I was wondering, like,
Speaker 1: what what makes like, what was it about this moment
Speaker 1: that someone who claim that actually comes into power and
Speaker 1: starts doing it, and starts doing in a way that's
Speaker 1: not just the sort of like you know when most
Speaker 1: of the time when someone nationalizes something, right, it's okay.
Speaker 1: So instead of instead of having a boss, that is,
Speaker 1: instead of having a boss whose job it is to
Speaker 1: like make money for the stock market, you have a
Speaker 1: boss who works for the state, and there there there's
Speaker 1: there's there's very little sort of like structural change in
Speaker 1: how and how the bureaucracy has run. There's no change.
Speaker 1: And like your your individual relation to your boss does
Speaker 1: not change. He's still your boss, and that isn't what
Speaker 1: happens in Chile, in in in the in the same way. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm interested, why why why? Why this looks different here?
Speaker 1: I guess Yeah, No, I think this is a great question,
Speaker 1: you know. And and so to to get to end
Speaker 1: a it is imperative that we start with Fray in
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty four, and in some senses we can start
Speaker 1: even in ninety seven, which was End's first attempt at
Speaker 1: running for president. At this time i End is running
Speaker 1: UM as essentially the last gasp, you could say, of
Speaker 1: the Popular Front which emerged in the nineteen thirties and
Speaker 1: into the nineteen forties and had successfully united a large
Speaker 1: swath of the political parties in Chile. And this is
Speaker 1: what led to that earlier moment of industrialization, largely through
Speaker 1: the sort of policy known as imports substitution industrialization, when
Speaker 1: which you know, the national industries would be built, they
Speaker 1: would be protected via tariffs, price controls, and others that
Speaker 1: would stimulate local growth to produce products that would have
Speaker 1: otherwise been imported. However, by the late nineteen fifties, things
Speaker 1: have begun to bottleneck right, largely in the Chilean case,
Speaker 1: because a lot of the countryside is still under control
Speaker 1: of the Latin Fundo of Grand Estate, right, and which
Speaker 1: means that productivity isn't necessarily where it should be UM.
Speaker 1: But it also means that the labor force that's sort
Speaker 1: of stuck on the land as well isn't available then
Speaker 1: for the development of capital as in industry right, and
Speaker 1: the capital goods are what you need to really jump
Speaker 1: start industry whole sale. What Chila does really well is
Speaker 1: that sort of in a mediary phase of making goods
Speaker 1: for individual consumption, right, things of things of that nature. Uh.
Speaker 1: And so what End does in seven is essentially trying
Speaker 1: to first run on a platform of industrialization and to
Speaker 1: fix inflation, right Uh. And he narrowly loses. He just
Speaker 1: barely loses the election. In nineteen fifty seven, Hill who
Speaker 1: wins is Alessandri wins. Uh. And he will essentially adopt
Speaker 1: a very classical liberal approach, free market reforms, repression of
Speaker 1: labor in some senses, freezing of any sort of gains
Speaker 1: of the labor movement, et cetera. This ultimately does not work. Right.
Speaker 1: And so in nineteen sixty four, you know, Shaker, you
Speaker 1: have calls then for a more revolutionary approach. Well. Also,
Speaker 1: what's happening in en sixty or right as we're now
Speaker 1: in the wake of the Cuban Revolution which has taken place,
Speaker 1: which has put the America's as a hemispheric designation unnoticed
Speaker 1: that now it is possible to have uh, sort of
Speaker 1: a revolution via insurrection via guerilla warfare be successful, right,
Speaker 1: and not only be successful, but be successful in defeating
Speaker 1: the hedgemon of the hemisphere, the United States. And so
Speaker 1: what the United States will then do is launched the
Speaker 1: Alliance through Progress, which is essentially a way of funneling
Speaker 1: money into reformist minded governments as a way to appease
Speaker 1: these calls for revolution m but prevent a sort of
Speaker 1: Marxist revolution from taking place. So in the case of Chile,
Speaker 1: the Alliance through Progress will funnel many, many amounts of
Speaker 1: dollars into the Fray administration. UM and Frey wins the
Speaker 1: election handily. Now there's a great debate to be had
Speaker 1: on whether or not the UH or whether the involvement
Speaker 1: of the c i A and a sort of scare
Speaker 1: tactic and fearmongering campaign went on in the nineteen sixty
Speaker 1: four campaign. Unfortunately, we just don't have the documents yet
Speaker 1: UM for this period, like we do for the nineteen seventies,
Speaker 1: then the lead up to the coup in the nineteen seventies. UM.
Speaker 1: You know, hopefully one day we'll have a better sense
Speaker 1: of really what went on that explains such a lopsided
Speaker 1: defeat of Agenda in nineteen sixty four. UM, So Frey
Speaker 1: will come to power in nineteen sixty four, and actually
Speaker 1: the agrarian reform in Chile will begin under the Christian
Speaker 1: Democrats under phrase administration financed in large part by the
Speaker 1: Alliance Progress UM. Also the nationalization of copper, which will
Speaker 1: be fully nationalized under all End in the nineteen seventies,
Speaker 1: but it actually exists in a state of so called
Speaker 1: negotiated nationalization under Frey, or what Frey would refer to
Speaker 1: as the Chileanization of copper, in which Chile would take
Speaker 1: a very small right fifty one, you know, percent controlling
Speaker 1: in the copper companies UM, but would still have large
Speaker 1: the American copper companies Anaconda and Kennicott specifically, would still
Speaker 1: be the ones responsible for running the operations themselves. That's
Speaker 1: that's an interesting I I guess weird historical thing because
Speaker 1: I know, okay, so like this, there have been a
Speaker 1: lot of times where the CIA has supported lander form,
Speaker 1: which is very weird, like that they do it in
Speaker 1: Japan for example, and you know it's seen as seen
Speaker 1: as one of these things. It's like, okay, well we
Speaker 1: have to do lander form in order to like stop
Speaker 1: and stop an actual revolution for happening. So we'll do
Speaker 1: a sort of capitalist version of it. It's interesting to
Speaker 1: me that Chile does it because I feel like that
Speaker 1: that's not something that happens in most of the other
Speaker 1: Latin American states with the CIA gets involved. Um yeah,
Speaker 1: well it's also I mean, the Alliance for Progress is
Speaker 1: official government policy. Um. You know, it will be the
Speaker 1: one that starts the alliance and then it will continue
Speaker 1: into the LBJ administration following Kennedy's assassination. Um. And so
Speaker 1: that is um. And you're right that regionally, the Appliance
Speaker 1: for Progress is largely a failure. There are, however, a
Speaker 1: few successes, and Chile was at the time held up
Speaker 1: as one of the successes and has somewhat been born
Speaker 1: out as one of the successes insofar as it is
Speaker 1: what initiates Thegarian reform in Chile. So so I guess
Speaker 1: so okay, So what you're saying is that there are
Speaker 1: there there's there's there's a specific group of parties at
Speaker 1: the US backs at this period who are trying to
Speaker 1: do this sort of who are trying to do some
Speaker 1: kind of reform, um like, who are trying to do
Speaker 1: this sort of like the class collaboration reform to save
Speaker 1: off revolution thing. And then I guess the like later
Speaker 1: policy becomes just do the do kind of insurgency on
Speaker 1: behalf of the landowners. Yeah, I mean the way the
Speaker 1: phrase you know, as the phrase administration continues, it becomes
Speaker 1: clear that his sort of reformist approaches is simply not working. Um.
Speaker 1: One is just not working on a macro economic level. Right.
Speaker 1: Inflation is still happening, which has sort of been the
Speaker 1: you know, enemy number one of the Chilean economy for
Speaker 1: most of the twentieth century. Right, most of the twentieth
Speaker 1: century in Chile is presidential administrations and economic economists, economic
Speaker 1: advisors are all struggling to understand how to control inflation. Um.
Speaker 1: And you know, Frey thinks that they can figure it
Speaker 1: out via these sort of reforms, via the gray in reform.
Speaker 1: Be it the sort of chileanization of the great minding
Speaker 1: wealth of the country. Uh, in terms of factory or
Speaker 1: industry level. They essentially proposed this idea of sort of
Speaker 1: workers enterprises that is somewhat modeled off the Yugoslavian model,
Speaker 1: which is a much more communitarian um approach. Right, as
Speaker 1: you were saying earlier, you know, the boss is still there.
Speaker 1: Workers do have a stake in control of the enterprise. UM,
Speaker 1: but private properties still exists, so I guess still the
Speaker 1: boss like with that, Like how to what extent is it?
Speaker 1: Like if you have this on a scale of like
Speaker 1: on the one hand, on like the the extreme end
Speaker 1: you have there's like nothing or maybe workers can own
Speaker 1: a share of a company. And on the other end
Speaker 1: is like I don't know, like like in nineteen thirties,
Speaker 1: like like seven like anarchist commune in Spain, Like how
Speaker 1: how how much control do they actually like I don't know,
Speaker 1: like is this closer to something like the sort of
Speaker 1: like German code code determination system, Like how close to
Speaker 1: like Yugoslavia? Is this? Sorry, I'm trying to get a
Speaker 1: sense of like yeah, this is a lot of this. No,
Speaker 1: this is fascinating. In fact, one of my sort of
Speaker 1: dream projects or sort of dream archives to get into
Speaker 1: an ultimately be the Yugoslavian archives or former Yugoslavian archives,
Speaker 1: because there is a lot of collaboration picking place between
Speaker 1: the Yugoslavian Left and Chileans at this time. UM. The
Speaker 1: problem is that a lot of this never really gets
Speaker 1: off the ground in practice. It is a lot of
Speaker 1: sort of things that exist on paper, reforms that are proposed,
Speaker 1: but reforms that never really get implemented, which then has
Speaker 1: the effect of heightening expectations but not delivering on the goods,
Speaker 1: which pushes people further to the left right and pushes
Speaker 1: them to demand a more radical solution, which they find
Speaker 1: in the nineteen seventy campaign of Salva end Right. And
Speaker 1: this is what really gets us to the to Ayends victory,
Speaker 1: which is the sort of failures of the Free administration
Speaker 1: to achieve the sort of revolution in liberty that he promises. Also,
Speaker 1: the near the end of the Free administration, there's a
Speaker 1: massacre that takes place in the south of Chile in
Speaker 1: part the month UM that really UM solidifies or if
Speaker 1: you will, sort of the final push um or loss
Speaker 1: of legitimacy for the Fray administration, as well as a
Speaker 1: pushing the sort of more popular classes to um be
Speaker 1: opposed to the Frame administration via hosts the sort of
Speaker 1: the Christian democratic message of reformantism and decides to sort
Speaker 1: of give revolution a chance. Uh. And it's into that
Speaker 1: moment that Salvador Allende reforms UM. The coalition that you know,
Speaker 1: the original coalition that he runs on was was referred
Speaker 1: to as the frapp Um. He forms a sort of
Speaker 1: new coalition in the lead up to the nineteen seventy election,
Speaker 1: which would be the Popular Unity Coalition UH. And it's
Speaker 1: a coalition of leftist parties, primarily the Socialists of which
Speaker 1: I end is a member, and the Communists. And here
Speaker 1: it's important to remember in the Chilean case that the
Speaker 1: Socialists are actually to the left of the communists. Um.
Speaker 1: The Communists are a much more um reserved approach to revolution,
Speaker 1: and by which I mean they're very much um going
Speaker 1: to sort of have the you know, they're they're holding
Speaker 1: the party line right there behold into the common tern right.
Speaker 1: But they are also very much in line with the
Speaker 1: I in days, with the day's view of legislating socialism.
Speaker 1: That's I guess. Another interesting aspect of this is, like
Speaker 1: that's something I think also doesn't get discussed very much,
Speaker 1: which is this period where like a lot of the
Speaker 1: like that that was the party discipline being opposed from
Speaker 1: Moscow for like a lot of this period like is
Speaker 1: explicitly telling them not to like explicitly saying don't do
Speaker 1: a revolution, like hold and stabilize the situation. Um. Is
Speaker 1: that the case like so I because I I okay,
Speaker 1: this is this is again going back to me knowing Italy,
Speaker 1: but I know Chile. That is that something like how
Speaker 1: how long has that been policy? Frow is? Is Is that
Speaker 1: like an old is that old popular front like stuff
Speaker 1: from them? Or is this is has it like because
Speaker 1: I know like like the U S policity Like so
Speaker 1: it's just like the Moscow line flips back and forth
Speaker 1: somewhat randomly depending on like what it's going, don't flips
Speaker 1: a lot, especially in that that nine three period. And
Speaker 1: and you know, once they established the idea of the
Speaker 1: Popular Front, that sort of does become the line. The
Speaker 1: big change takes place in UM. There is a meeting
Speaker 1: of the Common Turn in nineteen fifty seven, and that's
Speaker 1: when the idea of individual national roads to socialism becomes
Speaker 1: the official party line of the Common Tern And that
Speaker 1: is what then authorizes communist parties across the world to
Speaker 1: seek their own routes to socialism. Right, so it no
Speaker 1: longer has to be a Leninist insurrectional model, It no
Speaker 1: longer has to be a Cuban revolutionary model. UM. It
Speaker 1: can be its own. So that when allend A proposes
Speaker 1: this pluralist way of reaching socialism. That's what the communists
Speaker 1: will link to UM and and really that's what they'll
Speaker 1: hitch their wagon too, and will will tow that line
Speaker 1: throughout the three years, throughout the thousand days of the
Speaker 1: Allenda government, which will then ultimately put them into conflict
Speaker 1: with the left wing of the Socialist Party, which is
Speaker 1: pushing for a much more radical um a radical ship.
Speaker 1: And that's really the sort of context that the cordonate
Speaker 1: is emerge out of in nineteen seventy two, is the
Speaker 1: sort of growing factionalism, growing secretary sectarianism within the ruling
Speaker 1: coalition of the Popular Unity. Yeah, and I guess this
Speaker 1: this is already going a lot of some of the
Speaker 1: way to explaining why this looks different than a lot
Speaker 1: of the other sort of like a lot of the
Speaker 1: other sort of socialist coalition governments you see around the world.
Speaker 1: I mean, I mean, yeah, I mean partially just yeah,
Speaker 1: the influence of Yugoslavia is fascinating to me, because I
Speaker 1: mean that explained, That explains so much, right, Like that,
Speaker 1: that explains why there's a sort of democratic component to it,
Speaker 1: even in even in the sort of reformist periods and
Speaker 1: it explains why the expectation is that and not the
Speaker 1: sort of like even not even like like Soviet style
Speaker 1: nationalization absolutely does not look like that. Yeah, so you're
Speaker 1: you're right that you know, these these multifaceted, multi layer
Speaker 1: influences globally as well as locally within Chile as well
Speaker 1: as regionally, UM produce something that is the first time
Speaker 1: that UM so, for example, in victory, is the first
Speaker 1: time that an openly Marxist candidate will be elected president
Speaker 1: of a nation, elected democratically in a free and fair
Speaker 1: election that is not contested UM or anything like that.
Speaker 1: Now that said, he wins by plurality, he only wins
Speaker 1: by about in the thirty percent range UM. Now, historically
Speaker 1: in Chile, a plurality victory is not a problem because
Speaker 1: you demanded to the Congress, and the Congress typically will
Speaker 1: just rubber stamp the victory I end. However, you know,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of apprehension about what he means for
Speaker 1: the country, what he means for the sort of landed deletes,
Speaker 1: what he means for the sort of oligarchs that control
Speaker 1: the grand monopolies and she they uh, and so there
Speaker 1: is a lot of tension. Well, this is also then
Speaker 1: where the actions the CIA backfire. UM. So the work
Speaker 1: of the National Security Archive has done great work for
Speaker 1: uncovering the sort of two track plan that Nixon and
Speaker 1: Kissinger have for subverting the election of Allende and then
Speaker 1: ultimately preventing him from assuming power. And part of those
Speaker 1: tracks was to sort of foment some sort of crisis. UH.
Speaker 1: And so the crisis that they attempt to foment involves
Speaker 1: General Renee Schneider, and it is the attempt is that
Speaker 1: they're going to kidnap him and hold him hostage UM
Speaker 1: and use that as a way to prevent Allende from
Speaker 1: coming to power. Well, the problem is that goes horribly wrong.
Speaker 1: The people that are carrying out to kidnapping are clearly
Speaker 1: unprepared for what happens. UM. Things can go haywire and
Speaker 1: Schneider is assassinated, He's shot UM accidentally and layer it
Speaker 1: dies UH. And the problem then becomes, you know, the
Speaker 1: nation is horrified, The Chilean nation is horrified at this
Speaker 1: UM took place. And as a result, then UM ranks
Speaker 1: are closed around by Ende and it has decided that
Speaker 1: they will approve his UM candidacy, his election and that
Speaker 1: he will be affirmed as the president. Um. And you know,
Speaker 1: also what's happening in the background during the election and
Speaker 1: during the lead up to that vote is that the
Speaker 1: Popular Unity coalition has its program. You know, what we
Speaker 1: would think of as a campaign um sort of platform um.
Speaker 1: But part of the platform in the Populunities case was
Speaker 1: what they referred to as the sort of basic agreement
Speaker 1: between the coalition and the both the people of Chile
Speaker 1: but also the political system, which in this basic agreement
Speaker 1: is sort of what we've been discussing this whole time,
Speaker 1: which is that end would not change fundamentally the political system. Right,
Speaker 1: any sort of nationalizations, any sort of economic restructuring that
Speaker 1: they would at she for that they would try to
Speaker 1: achieve in Chile would be taken, would take place, would
Speaker 1: be used or one through the halls of concress. Right,
Speaker 1: everything would be legislated. Everything would still be from main um,
Speaker 1: the sort of Chilean government as normal. Right. This is
Speaker 1: where you get ends famous phrase that the revolution is
Speaker 1: going to be with infant us and be tinto right
Speaker 1: with meat pies and red wine, um, which means, you know,
Speaker 1: it's essentially not going to be a revolution of deprivation right,
Speaker 1: it's not going to be a revolution that fundamentally changes
Speaker 1: the structures of everyday life in Chile. This has when
Speaker 1: they could happen here. Join us tomorrow for part two
Speaker 1: of this interview, where we walk through the Chilean Revolution,
Speaker 1: the Cordons, and their lasting impact in society. If you
Speaker 1: want to find more of Nicholas's work, he has an
Speaker 1: article coming out in the next week or so and
Speaker 1: then made by History section of the Washington Post connecting
Speaker 1: the revolutionary period and the broader struggle for a dignity
Speaker 1: find Life to the modern inclusion of social rights in
Speaker 1: the proposed new post uprising Leighan Constitution. You can find
Speaker 1: more of us that happened here, pond on Twitter, Instagram,
Speaker 1: And we have two new podcasts coming out. The first
Speaker 1: is Ghost Church, hosted by the inimitable Jamie Loftus. It's
Speaker 1: a it's a deep look at the historical contemporary practice
Speaker 1: of spiritualism and mediums who talked to ghosts. It is wonderful.
Speaker 1: Jamie is one of the best podcasters ever do it
Speaker 1: and the first episode is out right now. You can
Speaker 1: find Ghost Church wherever find podcasts are distributed. Second on
Speaker 1: May Day, which is which is this Sunday, May one,
Speaker 1: the first episode of the Great Margaret Killjoy's new podcast
Speaker 1: Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff is dropping. It's about
Speaker 1: well what the title says, that's the coolest revolutionaries, desperadoes
Speaker 1: and ordinary people in the right place and the right
Speaker 1: time doing extremely cool stuff. And it's happening every Monday
Speaker 1: and Wednesday from here on out. So go give it.
Speaker 1: Listen when the traps on May Day. It is going
Speaker 1: to be great, and yeah, it is, it is. It
Speaker 1: is a great time to be podcasting. There are there
Speaker 1: are many podcasts, so go listen to them now after
Speaker 1: you're done with this one. Welcome to it Happen here
Speaker 1: a show that is once again today about the Chilean Revolution. Um,
Speaker 1: here's part two of my interview with Nicholas Scott. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess, I guess the next thing you should look
Speaker 1: at is like how how Yeah, it's exactly you know.
Speaker 1: The Essentially, by the end of Allende's first year, things
Speaker 1: are looking very promising. So a few victories, more than
Speaker 1: a few victories, but a few key victories take place
Speaker 1: in his first year in office. In one he submits
Speaker 1: his plan for the nationalization of the nation's mineral wealth,
Speaker 1: which is voted unanimously in Congress, which speaks to the
Speaker 1: level of broad support for Chile having its own national
Speaker 1: sovereignty over its own resources. Right. And this also then
Speaker 1: connects with sort of the theme that we've been developing
Speaker 1: this whole time, which is the sort of trends in
Speaker 1: regional and global similarities between Chile and elsewhere. Right. A
Speaker 1: lot of the Third World movement, a lot of countries
Speaker 1: in the so called Third World at that time are
Speaker 1: looking to nationalization as the way to extricate themselves from
Speaker 1: what they viewed as being in a relationship of dependency
Speaker 1: to circuits of global capitalism. Right. You have this whole
Speaker 1: idea of dependency theory that comes out of Latin America
Speaker 1: in specific UM. And the solution then is seen to
Speaker 1: be able to control one's own natural resources uh and
Speaker 1: and use that wealth to develop its own national industry. Right.
Speaker 1: This would overcome the sort of bottlenext in the imports
Speaker 1: institution model UM as well as allowing for more redistributive
Speaker 1: UMM structure of wealth and or land within the individual
Speaker 1: countries themselves. So he gets his mineral wealth UM nationalization past.
Speaker 1: The Popular Unity Coalition also wins a series of off
Speaker 1: fear or by elections at the local level, Um and
Speaker 1: wins them so successfully that they will eschew a alliance
Speaker 1: with the Christian Democrats, who are not part of the coalition,
Speaker 1: the popular unew coalition, but they are also at this
Speaker 1: time not part of the opposition, which is largely controlled
Speaker 1: by the Nationalist Party. They're sort of somewhere in the middle,
Speaker 1: but they're also in the point in the middle in
Speaker 1: which they control a large share of the Congress as
Speaker 1: well as the courts themselves, so they will not So
Speaker 1: the Popularly Unique Coalition is sort of buoyed by that.
Speaker 1: What it sees is the success at the ballot box,
Speaker 1: and it sees its success is getting its plans passed,
Speaker 1: and so they will issue an alliance with the Christian Democrats.
Speaker 1: And then the sort of other main thing that takes
Speaker 1: place in the ninety one is the ad is able
Speaker 1: to affect using macroeconomic policies that were functionally Canesianism right,
Speaker 1: Um in his economic Minister Pedro Guskovic Um will essentially
Speaker 1: allow for a redistribution of wealth in which workers received
Speaker 1: sort of um what they could what we can consider bonuses, right,
Speaker 1: but sort of automatic increases um that we're affected from
Speaker 1: the top down in wages across UH. And the historian
Speaker 1: Peter Wynn who published the sort of landmark study UM
Speaker 1: that really dominated the field of the history and the
Speaker 1: historiography of the Popular Unity years. He published a book
Speaker 1: called The Leaverse of Revolution that looks at the Yor
Speaker 1: Textile Mill, which was the first mill that I in
Speaker 1: a nationalizes UM in N And what when found during
Speaker 1: his research is that, you know, IDAs policies in n
Speaker 1: allowed a majority of Chileans to purchase bedsheets for the
Speaker 1: first time in many of their lives. That sheets were
Speaker 1: not something that the majority of Chileans used, despite the
Speaker 1: fact that a majority of Chileans worked in the textile
Speaker 1: industry right the textile industry was one of the most
Speaker 1: developed industries in Chile at this moment. And so all
Speaker 1: of these things sort of come together and by the
Speaker 1: end of the nineteen seventy one signs are looking good. However,
Speaker 1: by the time sort of nineteen seventy two dawns and
Speaker 1: as we're getting into the nineteen seventy two cracks are
Speaker 1: beginning to appear. There's another series of by elections in
Speaker 1: which the Popular Unity Coalition does not win. The Christian
Speaker 1: Democrats win UH. The election for the Rector of the
Speaker 1: University of Chile is a shock defeat for the Popular
Speaker 1: Unity Coalition and the Christian Democrat wins that UM. As well.
Speaker 1: As in nineteen seventy two, there is for the first
Speaker 1: time in the nation's history, the Central Workers Federation of Labor,
Speaker 1: the COOT has for the first time its own UM
Speaker 1: open elections for its leadership. It was the first time
Speaker 1: the rank and file could elect the leadership of the
Speaker 1: National Labor Confederation, and the Communist win the largest majority
Speaker 1: and the Socialists come in second, but just below the Socialists,
Speaker 1: and at the percentage level it was functionally the same
Speaker 1: where the Christian Democrats, so much so that basically a
Speaker 1: court that the Popular Unique Coalition sees that a quarter
Speaker 1: of the working class of Chile identifies as a Christian Democrat. Meanwhile, economically,
Speaker 1: things are beginning to stall out. Inflation is beginning to
Speaker 1: creep back up. UM production is not necessarily at the
Speaker 1: levels that UM the government would want it to be at. Right,
Speaker 1: so the idea of winning the battle of production begins
Speaker 1: becomes the sort of watchword or rallying cry in nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy two. Uh, And if the successes of nineteen one
Speaker 1: had somewhat papered over the sectarian differences that we were
Speaker 1: discussing earlier between say, the minists and socialists, by nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy two, those secretary differences are really spilling out into
Speaker 1: public view. So in mid nineteen you have the Communist Party,
Speaker 1: um member of the Communist Party is also a member
Speaker 1: of the allen A government, or Orlando MEAs Pens and
Speaker 1: editorial in which he essentially calls for the party, for
Speaker 1: the coalition to sort of close ranks, to consolidate its games,
Speaker 1: to reach out to the Christian Democrats, to make an
Speaker 1: alliance and use that sort of consolidated alliance as the
Speaker 1: way to move forward on in the revolutionary path. The Socialists, however,
Speaker 1: specifically the left wing of the Socialist Party, which was
Speaker 1: sort of identified with Carlo Carlos Ultimarano at the time,
Speaker 1: takes the opposite approach and says that, no, the solution
Speaker 1: isn't to consolidate to advance. Uh. The solution is to
Speaker 1: advance and consolidate by advancing. In other words, we shouldn't
Speaker 1: try to make an alliance with the Christian Democrats, because
Speaker 1: in their view, the Christian Democrats were just bourgeois right,
Speaker 1: that we should essentially align ourselves with the popular classes,
Speaker 1: with the world laborers that are meeting charge of the
Speaker 1: agrarian reform that's picking up speed rapidly in the countryside
Speaker 1: at this time right see, land seizures are taking place
Speaker 1: much more rapidly. Now, we should also place our alliances
Speaker 1: with the popular working classes, which at that moment, at
Speaker 1: the moment that this polemic is playing out in the
Speaker 1: press of Chile, is the very same moment do you
Speaker 1: have the first cordoon industrial emerged in citys Maipo uh.
Speaker 1: And it's into that sort of fractured moment that you
Speaker 1: have workers from a couple of plants that just happened
Speaker 1: to meet serendipitous lee on the steps of the Labor
Speaker 1: Ministry one day in Um about May of nineteen seventy two.
Speaker 1: They had both been on strike and had both been
Speaker 1: demanding their incorporation into what was referred to as the
Speaker 1: Social Property Area, which this was a Day's vision for
Speaker 1: creating a socialist economy, and this was a plan that
Speaker 1: he had submitted to the Congress to restructure the Chilean
Speaker 1: economy into three parts. There would have a social property
Speaker 1: area that would be owned and operated by the state,
Speaker 1: You'd have a mixed property area that would be a
Speaker 1: sort of mixture between the state and private indistry. And
Speaker 1: you'd have a private property area which would just be
Speaker 1: business as usual private enterprise. Um. Ultimately, that plan had
Speaker 1: been stalled out because of opposition from the Christian Democrats
Speaker 1: that vetoed it and submitted their own alternative strategy, which
Speaker 1: then I end a vetoed became a constitutional crisis that
Speaker 1: got remanded to the Constitutional Tribunal in Chile, which ultimately
Speaker 1: languished there through the end of the Enda government through
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy three during the coup, has never really resolved. Nevertheless,
Speaker 1: workers saw the ability to be in put into the
Speaker 1: social property area as the solution to what they perceived
Speaker 1: as a revolutionary socialism, right to be in a socialized economy.
Speaker 1: And I mentioned earlier Peter Win's work on the Order
Speaker 1: Textile mill. That's exactly what the workers at Yard or
Speaker 1: did they decided to do. Now that is in opposition
Speaker 1: to all End and the Popular Unity's plan, which was
Speaker 1: to put these sort of grand monopolies in the social
Speaker 1: property area, not necessarily smaller industries such as such as
Speaker 1: the yard or textile mill in particular UM. There were
Speaker 1: other perhaps textile companies that have inslated for incorporation. But
Speaker 1: the problem is that the workers successfully petitioned UM and
Speaker 1: pressured Allende and one there incorporation, and that unleashed what
Speaker 1: Win would refer to as a revolution from below. And
Speaker 1: that's what allowed the workers who sees the Labor Ministry
Speaker 1: that day in nineteen to demand their incorporation into the
Speaker 1: social property area, because there was a a law on
Speaker 1: the books in Chile that stated that if there was
Speaker 1: an unresolved labor conflict of the factory, that the state
Speaker 1: could intervene and essentially make state control of that factory,
Speaker 1: which would be the first step to them being incorporated
Speaker 1: into the social property area. And so it's out of
Speaker 1: that happenstance meeting on the doors to the Labor Ministry
Speaker 1: when they seize it and take it over, shut it down. UM.
Speaker 1: That then the workers of this industrial sector on the
Speaker 1: west of Santiago begin meeting, and they begin collaborating, and
Speaker 1: they begin organizing themselves territorially. And I guess this is
Speaker 1: a good moment to apologize to our listeners that never
Speaker 1: really gave a good definition as to what a court
Speaker 1: owned industryal was in practice. Essentially, the sort of wager
Speaker 1: of this organization was that you could organize yourself territorially
Speaker 1: rather than by trade or industry right, which would be
Speaker 1: the traditional way that a union would be structured. Um,
Speaker 1: metal workers organized with metal workers, class workers organized with
Speaker 1: the class workers, textile etcetera, etcetera. Um, and never the
Speaker 1: twain shall meet in practice right, It's all through bureaucratic structures,
Speaker 1: labor leaders, etcetera. As I mentioned, it wasn't until nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy two that the rank and file is ever able
Speaker 1: to vote themselves for their own national leadership. And so
Speaker 1: the idea of these workers is that they're going to
Speaker 1: create their sort of new form of organization, and after
Speaker 1: you know, deciding to do it, they seize the territory
Speaker 1: of so Smaipoo. They shut down traffic, and this road
Speaker 1: that they seize is one of the main roads into
Speaker 1: the city of Santiago from the west, which means that
Speaker 1: the government had to respond immediately. As one worker, uh
Speaker 1: not worker one government official put it at the time,
Speaker 1: the workers were in the streets. We had to respond, right,
Speaker 1: you're you're a government that it claims to represent the
Speaker 1: working class. You're a government that it claims to be
Speaker 1: putting yourself on the road to socialism. And the workers
Speaker 1: have now cut off trans rotation into the city UM
Speaker 1: and demanding sort of you to fulfill your promise, and
Speaker 1: so they had to respond UM. Ultimately, some of the
Speaker 1: workers that were striking at the time, specifically from the
Speaker 1: Perlack company, which was canning company UH, they did win
Speaker 1: the incorporation into the Social Property Area UM. And however,
Speaker 1: other workers UM from other factories in the area did
Speaker 1: not win their incorporation, which then produced a march into
Speaker 1: the city of Santiago in late June, and it also
Speaker 1: produced a platform of struggle by what was referred to
Speaker 1: as the Workers Command of criosm PROU And that's really
Speaker 1: the first document we have UM that shows that there
Speaker 1: is this new structure that is demanding that the government
Speaker 1: fulfill its promise, live up to its basic program UM.
Speaker 1: Now following that moment, however, there's sort of a period
Speaker 1: of demobilization that takes place in sort of mid ninet
Speaker 1: and it's really not until October nineteen seventy two, that
Speaker 1: you have the flourishing of this new form of organization
Speaker 1: of the Cortona industrial across the city of Santiago. And
Speaker 1: the reason that it takes place in October two is
Speaker 1: because that's the moment that the opposition launches its first
Speaker 1: concerted effort to try and topple the Illenda government. That's
Speaker 1: what's referred to as the Boss of Strike. And essentially
Speaker 1: what happens is there's a localized strike of truckers in
Speaker 1: the far South of Chile and the sort of business
Speaker 1: elites of the country are successful in transforming what is
Speaker 1: a very localized strike in the far South into a
Speaker 1: global lockout on the part of business owners. Right, so
Speaker 1: they'll shutter factories, they'll shutter distribution centers of food stuffs,
Speaker 1: they'll completely shut down transportation networks in the city of
Speaker 1: Santiago and other cities across the country. UM. So you
Speaker 1: can understand why they would call it the Boss of strike. Um.
Speaker 1: And this is the moment then that you have workers
Speaker 1: in these industrial zones that we start began our conversation
Speaker 1: with using this model that emerged in the southwest of
Speaker 1: Santiago as this new model to seize their factories that
Speaker 1: they've been locked out of, to reorganize the production of
Speaker 1: their factories and to ensure distribution, uh you know, takes
Speaker 1: place of basic goods and services for local residents in
Speaker 1: their community. It's really what allows the end a government
Speaker 1: to whether the storm of the October strike and the
Speaker 1: October crisis as it will also be known um ultimately
Speaker 1: you know, that will reach a truce in November that
Speaker 1: includes a cabinet shake up, also includes integrating the military
Speaker 1: into the cabinet um as well as Ada was able
Speaker 1: to deploy the military to sort of keep the peace
Speaker 1: in some senses. So there is a historiographical debate to
Speaker 1: be had between you know, how much of it was
Speaker 1: the workers and the cordonis saving the country and saving
Speaker 1: the government, and how much of it was the military
Speaker 1: remaining loyal to the government that allows them to sort
Speaker 1: of reach was referred to as the truth of November.
Speaker 1: So I guess I want to back up for a
Speaker 1: second and talk about what is the intern organization of
Speaker 1: the criticize actually look like, Like are we talking about counsels?
Speaker 1: Is this mass assemblies? Um? How how how does this
Speaker 1: actually work on a sort of like day to day
Speaker 1: basis the great question, and this is actually the question
Speaker 1: that has sort of dominated a lot of the scholarship
Speaker 1: on the Cordonists. Um Frank going to shoot, who is
Speaker 1: sort of the leading scholar of the Cordonists essentially used
Speaker 1: Marx's distinction of a class in itself and a class
Speaker 1: for itself to sort of unraveled this question. So, for
Speaker 1: we're going to shoot. The Cordona in itself is the
Speaker 1: sort of territory, right that we began our conversation with.
Speaker 1: And then the Cordona for itself is essentially the workers Council,
Speaker 1: that is the governing body of the Cordona itself, which
Speaker 1: was composed of already unionized workers, right, so it already
Speaker 1: is a tier of working class above say just your
Speaker 1: general a worker that worked on the factory floor. So
Speaker 1: it's already a unionized worker. And some of that occupies
Speaker 1: a power or a position of authority within the union,
Speaker 1: i e. Already a or on the directorate or president,
Speaker 1: vice president, treasurer, or secretary, so that main councils are
Speaker 1: elected within the sort of general assembly of the court
Speaker 1: on itself. Below you have then different commissions, right, you
Speaker 1: have a sort of propaganda press commission. You have a
Speaker 1: Cultural commission, you have a sports commission, you have a
Speaker 1: security commission, right because at this time you had far
Speaker 1: right shock troops that would spark street battles and that
Speaker 1: would harass workers, that would also attack factories that had
Speaker 1: been seized, so that they had um Security Commission, frontline
Speaker 1: Defense Commission. You also had distribution commissions, uh, and then
Speaker 1: you had other commissions that would essentially seek to coordinate
Speaker 1: all of this um that exists. So you had a
Speaker 1: sort of coordinating board just below the sort of general council.
Speaker 1: And then that's what was the mediation point between that
Speaker 1: sort of governing council and your different commissions. How how
Speaker 1: are the people who are like who are on these
Speaker 1: commissions selected? Are they like, are they elected or is
Speaker 1: they just like whoever wants to be on this thing?
Speaker 1: So it's a mix of both, right, So you you're
Speaker 1: sort of main council itself is elected via general assembly. Um.
Speaker 1: In terms of the commissions, the smaller commissions, we sadly
Speaker 1: don't have great documentary evidence that you know, lays out
Speaker 1: the process for that. So our best guests are our
Speaker 1: best understanding would be a mix of sort of volunteerism,
Speaker 1: as well as some sort of UM within the commission itself,
Speaker 1: some form of election excuse me, that would take place
Speaker 1: to sort of a point ahead of that commission that
Speaker 1: would then coordinate with the General Council itself. UM. You know,
Speaker 1: really what this you know what this sort of cuts
Speaker 1: the heart of UM is that the history of the
Speaker 1: Cordinates is a very evervescent history. UM. It's really easy
Speaker 1: to see the Cordinates in action, right when they're doing
Speaker 1: things like seizing control of their territory and erecting barricades.
Speaker 1: But on that day to day level, it's a relatively
Speaker 1: opaque sort of structure. It's really hard for us as
Speaker 1: historians to get a view into that. You know. One
Speaker 1: reason the Good Shoot is able to you know, unpack
Speaker 1: as much as he has and uncover as much as
Speaker 1: he has is because he conducted a series of oral
Speaker 1: history interviews, UM with many of the surviving workers. UM.
Speaker 1: And that's really one of the foundational source spaces we have.
Speaker 1: He published this in a book in which he published
Speaker 1: the full transcript of his interviews, so we don't it's
Speaker 1: not just like an interpretive essay, it's the full transcript UM.
Speaker 1: And so that's that, in combination with some of these
Speaker 1: coordinates had local presses that we have existing UM documentary
Speaker 1: evidence from that sort of would give you know, your
Speaker 1: standard diagram of council commission, commission, commission lines connecting them
Speaker 1: and things like that. UM. But one of the other
Speaker 1: few documents that we have surviving documents we have is
Speaker 1: what's referred to as the Manifesto of Cordona Folcuna Macana.
Speaker 1: And this is the document that my research really is
Speaker 1: at the heart of my research UM because while the
Speaker 1: Unamacana is recognized as sort of one of the most
Speaker 1: dynamic and strongest of the cordonas behind the original and studios,
Speaker 1: my poo, we really don't have a lot. We don't
Speaker 1: know a lot about what was going on in there.
Speaker 1: In fact, my research was born out of a conversation
Speaker 1: the first time I was in Chile conducting research for
Speaker 1: my master's at toughs UM with good to Shoot himself
Speaker 1: who told me that, like, we really don't know a
Speaker 1: lot about what was going on day to day in
Speaker 1: Folcuna Macana, would be really great if we could somehow
Speaker 1: find a way to do that. Uh, And you know
Speaker 1: that kind of stuck with me, that really wasn't my
Speaker 1: concern at the time. I concerned at the time was
Speaker 1: trying to understand how the cordonas had shifted from their
Speaker 1: emergence to the coup itself, because what I was seeing
Speaker 1: a lot of the literature was that people were using
Speaker 1: sources from late nineteen seventy three, once the Coralines are
Speaker 1: established and really showing up and press right, they're showing
Speaker 1: up in the archive a lot more by nineteen seventy three,
Speaker 1: and they're using documents from nineteen seventy three to describe
Speaker 1: they're sort of founding in nineteen seventy two, and the
Speaker 1: historian and me was kind of like, m hm, you know, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's things change, right, and things change both over time
Speaker 1: and space. And so my original concern was, you know,
Speaker 1: what made the sort of changes from the western side
Speaker 1: of the Sydney to the eastern side of the city.
Speaker 1: But then when I got to u v A and
Speaker 1: began my doctoral work, I really wanted to zero in
Speaker 1: on Facundamkina, And really I was, you know that that
Speaker 1: conversation with Frank was really ringing in my head, and
Speaker 1: so you know, I kinda at u v A had
Speaker 1: to do another master's essay as part of the program.
Speaker 1: They there, despite having already done a master's thesis when
Speaker 1: I was a tough exactly exactly the thesis. But you
Speaker 1: know what it did, what it allowed me to do,
Speaker 1: was to uh, you know, kind of play with the
Speaker 1: sources in ways that I may not have had the
Speaker 1: ability to do otherwise. Right, And so I really sat
Speaker 1: with this manifesto for a long period time and really
Speaker 1: did a close reading of this document, which you know,
Speaker 1: a lot of times this document has shown up in
Speaker 1: previous studies. It's shown up as a this is a
Speaker 1: document that emerges during the October Crisis. It's the document
Speaker 1: we know we have from this one corzone here, it is, right,
Speaker 1: But what I uncovered was that the document itself, the
Speaker 1: document that is headed as the Manifesto, is actually a
Speaker 1: reworked version of a document that had circulated previously during
Speaker 1: the October Crisis, that was produced by the Revolutionary Left movement,
Speaker 1: the Mirror, the Far Left Party and the aren't they rists?
Speaker 1: They are? They very much are. This is the very
Speaker 1: far left UM party that has calling for a more
Speaker 1: insurrectionary model UM. It's also calling for worker peasant alliance. Right, So,
Speaker 1: it is this very much more traditional um socialist revolutionary
Speaker 1: in that sense, compared to the sort of aendeist vision
Speaker 1: of socialism that is being handed down from above. Right.
Speaker 1: And so during the October crisis, there's this document that
Speaker 1: circulates by the opposition that's running the crisis that is
Speaker 1: essentially the petition the plago in Spanish should be the word,
Speaker 1: but essentially the petition of of Chile um and the
Speaker 1: mirror takes issue with the fact that the bosses issued
Speaker 1: a petition in the name of Chile, and so they
Speaker 1: issue a counter document that is the people's petition, the
Speaker 1: Pliego del Pueblo. And it's a very long document, it's
Speaker 1: a very um It reads as a essentially a manifesto
Speaker 1: for a new revolution to take place, right, like how
Speaker 1: to transform the present crisis into a revolutionary and breakthrough
Speaker 1: And as you're saying, a core various model. In the
Speaker 1: tail end of the October crisis, as Cordonacamacana is consolidating
Speaker 1: itself right, itself forms after a factory seizure at elec
Speaker 1: metal Um, which then unites these sort of two nodes
Speaker 1: that existed in the territory at the north end and
Speaker 1: the south end into one sort of communication and solidarity
Speaker 1: network that will then become known as the Cordon that
Speaker 1: has its first general assembly in which it takes this
Speaker 1: document from the Mirror and begins to rework it. And
Speaker 1: that's then what becomes the Manifesto of Cordoncuonamacana. And so
Speaker 1: in my research and in my master's essay at the
Speaker 1: University of Virginia, what I did was, you know, I
Speaker 1: really compared these two documents and looked for where the differences.
Speaker 1: You know, what's showing up here that's not showing up
Speaker 1: in the mirors document. In other words, what glimpses can
Speaker 1: we get of the local culture of Acunamacina itself. Um.
Speaker 1: And one of the key differences that I find is
Speaker 1: there's an entire section that begins the manifesto that was
Speaker 1: the crime of the bosses, the crimes of the bosses,
Speaker 1: and that exists in the Meryor's document as well. But
Speaker 1: the crimes that are articulated are far slight differences. But
Speaker 1: the in the manifesto itself, the final crime that's articulated
Speaker 1: is that the manifesto reads that it's a crime that
Speaker 1: the basic few elite in Chile continue to use the
Speaker 1: country's wealth to support their privileges without giving a dignified
Speaker 1: life to a majority of joyance. And this doesn't appear
Speaker 1: anywhere in the Mirrors document. And it was something about
Speaker 1: this phrase of a dignified life that really just like
Speaker 1: cued my analytical census that sort of raised the flags
Speaker 1: for me. And this is what then led me down
Speaker 1: the road that I'm on now, which is the road
Speaker 1: of looking at things like the church and the Pope
Speaker 1: La Door movement, because the idea of dignity and the
Speaker 1: idea of a dignified life is a key discoorse that's
Speaker 1: circulating in the church's pastoralism right coming out As we
Speaker 1: were speaking about earlier, the discourse of dignity is really
Speaker 1: present in the church's outreach efforts, but it's also present
Speaker 1: in this Pope La Door movement for housing. The idea
Speaker 1: of a dignified house as the end goal of their
Speaker 1: struggle is something that is, you know, rings out in
Speaker 1: the documents that we have access to and in the
Speaker 1: oral histories that we have, and so that really, you know,
Speaker 1: made me think, like, what is it then about the
Speaker 1: kunamakaina that is allowing gifts to appear here? And you know,
Speaker 1: what can we then learn using this as our you know,
Speaker 1: starting point and going out where and so that's on.
Speaker 1: I decided to sort of take the story back all
Speaker 1: the way in nineteen fifty seven and look at things
Speaker 1: like the church, look at things like the Pope leot
Speaker 1: Door movement, but then also extend the story past the
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy three period, which is when the coup takes place,
Speaker 1: which is, you know, in the historiography seen as this
Speaker 1: hard line in this this break in in Cholyan history,
Speaker 1: that there's a before September eleventh, nineteen seventy three, and
Speaker 1: there's an after September eleventh, nineteen seventy three, and very
Speaker 1: few studies crossed that line, especially studies with regards to
Speaker 1: the labor movement, the specifically the dignity thing is is
Speaker 1: really really interesting to me too, because so I didn't
Speaker 1: interview like, oh God, like a month the go sort
Speaker 1: of have lost track of time, but I didn't interview
Speaker 1: with within with an Amazon organizer. And one of the
Speaker 1: things that that was one of the things that was
Speaker 1: like one of the things that he brought up is
Speaker 1: that one of the things that like we are fighting
Speaker 1: for his dignity, and yeah, that that does some things.
Speaker 1: Typically I've been thinking about more because like I think
Speaker 1: we talked about this a bit in the interview itself,
Speaker 1: but like, like dignity as a demand is a thing
Speaker 1: that you that you see all of the time in
Speaker 1: like in in in you know if if if if
Speaker 1: you are talking to a bunch of people, like on
Speaker 1: the streets in the middle of a movement, you will
Speaker 1: hear people talk about dignity. I mean, I think, if
Speaker 1: if I'm remembering this correctly, this is this is one
Speaker 1: of the this is one of the big things. This
Speaker 1: is one of the big demands. And like the modern
Speaker 1: Chilean protest movements, like that was one of their huge
Speaker 1: sort of focus. But it's but it's also something like
Speaker 1: I have never like at any I don't think I've
Speaker 1: ever seen like a communist party say the word dignity,
Speaker 1: like like I think it happens. I don't know if
Speaker 1: every once in a while, like maybe you see it
Speaker 1: if you get a document that's that's not produced by
Speaker 1: the sort of ideological engines, but it's produced by like
Speaker 1: just a bunch of workers in a factory. But yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that that's fascinating to me because like, yeah, because that
Speaker 1: I don't know, it's it's it seems like the structive
Speaker 1: for dignity both yeah, like has this thing as like
Speaker 1: a very specific discourse from the church, but it's also
Speaker 1: something that shows up in a lot of movements where
Speaker 1: you're not dealing with the kind of like ideological rigidity
Speaker 1: that you get from you know, like the mirror not
Speaker 1: the mirror is a like that that you know, like
Speaker 1: that that's that's a very like like this is a party,
Speaker 1: it has a line, it has a very sort of
Speaker 1: like yeah, yeah, And it's fascinating to me that that yeah,
Speaker 1: that that you you can see these differences where even
Speaker 1: when they have influenced the thing that gets acted as dignity, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean there is you know, I think that perhaps
Speaker 1: what has um pushed studies of leftism, socialism, and labor
Speaker 1: movement away from the idea of dignity as an analytic
Speaker 1: object is there is tension here. Right, Dignity is a
Speaker 1: highly individualized concept, but the solution for a dignified life
Speaker 1: for all Chileans, as per this document were collective structural changes,
Speaker 1: and so there's this tension between a collective solution and
Speaker 1: an individual gain right. And so I think that that
Speaker 1: both um explains why this hasn't necessarily been a focus
Speaker 1: of a lot of studies um before. But it also,
Speaker 1: you know, it gets to the historiography itself, which was
Speaker 1: you know, a large product of the history here, and
Speaker 1: so things like the Christian Democrats and things like the
Speaker 1: Church were seen as the enemy of the popular Unity
Speaker 1: coalition given the way that the you know, the coup
Speaker 1: takes place and things like that, and so anything that
Speaker 1: maybe had a whiff of Christian democracy or Christianity or
Speaker 1: things like that was seen as as antithetical or incompatible
Speaker 1: with the study of the left. It also gets to
Speaker 1: the tension that you were doing a really great job
Speaker 1: of sort of unpacking, which is this tension between the
Speaker 1: national leadership of these parties and the national union leadership
Speaker 1: and then everyday workers on the ground, right. And you know,
Speaker 1: that's I think really where the strength. And this was
Speaker 1: really the argument that I advanced in my master's thesis
Speaker 1: the UVA is that one of the central contradictions of
Speaker 1: the all end A period is they were competing ideas
Speaker 1: of socialism. So from the top down and from my
Speaker 1: end Day's view, socialism was the traditional Soviet union esque
Speaker 1: approach and so far as it was national economic planning,
Speaker 1: party hierarchies, things of that nature, right, discipline at the
Speaker 1: base and upward and upward planning from the top down.
Speaker 1: But what I think the manifesto and the history of
Speaker 1: the Quinmacina helps us understand is that for every day individuals,
Speaker 1: that their idea of socialism didn't have anything to do
Speaker 1: with state economic planning. It didn't have anything to do
Speaker 1: with expertise and technocrats and things of that nature. It
Speaker 1: had to do with the idea that like I need
Speaker 1: sheets from my bed, I need food for my child.
Speaker 1: I need the ability to you know, have enough sleep
Speaker 1: to be able to get up and go to the
Speaker 1: factory the next day. Right, I need to be able
Speaker 1: to live a dignified life, to be able to then
Speaker 1: you know, carry out my work, my obligation as a
Speaker 1: worker in the historical movement of socialism, and so I
Speaker 1: think that this is really what um This tension is
Speaker 1: then what allows for the sort of destabilization to take
Speaker 1: place um as the opposition consolidates and ultimately destabilizes the
Speaker 1: identic government in nine Yeah, I think this is a
Speaker 1: tension that like, I mean, I think there's there's different
Speaker 1: versions of it too that you see sort of across
Speaker 1: the story. Like one of the ways that it manifests
Speaker 1: is this battle between the people who think socialism is
Speaker 1: about like is national like state national incorporation, that people
Speaker 1: who think socialism is about like direct control at the
Speaker 1: point of production by the people who are doing the work.
Speaker 1: But but I think also, yeah, the question of dignity
Speaker 1: is it's like it's this, it's like, dignity is this
Speaker 1: expression that's like maximally bad for um, like if you're
Speaker 1: like you know, if you're like a you're you're you're
Speaker 1: a material you're like you know, you're a historical materialist theoretician. Right,
Speaker 1: It's it's it's the worst possible slogan because on the
Speaker 1: one hand, it's like it's not materialist, right, like what
Speaker 1: is dignity? There's no dignity has no class relation, like
Speaker 1: what is that? You know, And it's it's it's simultaneously
Speaker 1: like it's not with jerious enough. It's too reformist because like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: you can give people dignity by just buying them off
Speaker 1: for like increasing wages, or you could have a class compromise,
Speaker 1: and that can give you dignity, but then simultaneously it's
Speaker 1: the thing that's too radical because the problem with dignity
Speaker 1: also is it like, yeah, I don't know, like there's
Speaker 1: there's no guarantee that you're going to get dignity if
Speaker 1: like your factory is controlled by the state, like exactly,
Speaker 1: and yeah, and this is why, like you see almost
Speaker 1: identically the state, different name, yeah, and and yeah, it's
Speaker 1: like it's why you see like the uprisings that happen um,
Speaker 1: I mean really starting in Hungary. But yeah, this is why,
Speaker 1: like that they're uprising in Czechoslovakia looks almost identical to
Speaker 1: like the uprising that happens in France. It's because they're
Speaker 1: both like there there's you know, you're you're like you
Speaker 1: the factory worker in a factory in Czechoslovakia and you,
Speaker 1: the factory worker in the factory in France are dealing
Speaker 1: with essentially the same thing. And so it's it's this
Speaker 1: kind of like I don't know, it's it seems like
Speaker 1: it's it's it's this perfect sort of like cipher for
Speaker 1: all of these kind of political differences that that that
Speaker 1: that manifests this this this really old tension in what
Speaker 1: the worker's movement is going to be that's been being
Speaker 1: fought out since eighteen thirties and that. Yeah, but I
Speaker 1: think that like if we as scholars and if we
Speaker 1: use intellectuals, are really serious about when we say that
Speaker 1: we're going to study things from below, then I think
Speaker 1: that we have to take the workers at their word, right,
Speaker 1: And so like, for example, I presented a version of
Speaker 1: my of my master's thesis at a I studied was
Speaker 1: it a program in Bologna for a summer um And
Speaker 1: so I was presenting this and to the you know,
Speaker 1: and the Italian leftists in the room, um really came
Speaker 1: you know, came down on this question of it sounds
Speaker 1: like what they're describing isn't socialism because they're much more
Speaker 1: interested in distribution and not interested in the point of production,
Speaker 1: which isn't socialist. And you know, and all I could say,
Speaker 1: and all I could respond to this is like, that's
Speaker 1: what my subjects are using in the archive. And for me,
Speaker 1: it's far more productive to look for those slippages and
Speaker 1: look for those spaces and the archive when they are
Speaker 1: saying something that may be different than what we under
Speaker 1: stand it to be and that's a lot more productive
Speaker 1: avenue for analysis, and that, to me is really how
Speaker 1: we fulfill this obligation to study things from below, because
Speaker 1: we have to actually take them at their word and
Speaker 1: understand and try to understand what that actually meant for them, right,
Speaker 1: and what that meant on an everyday basis. And I
Speaker 1: think that there's a there's a sort of like practical
Speaker 1: like organizational like like you know, if if if you
Speaker 1: today want to do something like this, like I think
Speaker 1: I think there's there's an imperative there too, which is
Speaker 1: that like you actually do have to take seriously what
Speaker 1: people think and how that's different from the way that
Speaker 1: like you the organizer are thinking about this, because those
Speaker 1: are things that don't overlap and a lot of times,
Speaker 1: like you know, and it's it is not enough to
Speaker 1: just be like, well, these people want diggity. What they
Speaker 1: actually want is socialism or like what they actually want
Speaker 1: is the abolition of the classes. It's like you have
Speaker 1: to like believe them when they say that they want something,
Speaker 1: and you know, and and when you don't do that,
Speaker 1: and when you get these sort of disjuncts between like
Speaker 1: when you get these disjuncts between the sort of the
Speaker 1: sort of party bureaucracy on the top and what like
Speaker 1: people in the streets who are season factories want like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think like things start to sort of come apart, exactly.
Speaker 1: And I know I think that, um that if we don't,
Speaker 1: you know, depart from the perspective of staying true to
Speaker 1: what the archive gives us, then there's only a risk
Speaker 1: that we're you know, every historian, every scholar is going
Speaker 1: to inject their own interpretation onto a document, right, But
Speaker 1: the best way to sort of safeguard that is to,
Speaker 1: you know, stay true to what it's saying, and that
Speaker 1: you know, the same goes for an activist and an
Speaker 1: organizer as for an intellectual, right, Like, if you don't
Speaker 1: depart from the perspective of what your constituents or what
Speaker 1: your group is saying, you know, what they're really saying,
Speaker 1: the word that they're using to describe what they're demanding,
Speaker 1: then you're only ever going to just be trying to
Speaker 1: sort of fit the you know, the square peg in
Speaker 1: the round hole. Yeah, and and that can go really
Speaker 1: really really spectacularly broad. Yeah, exactly, And you know, and
Speaker 1: that is you know what then leads to know in
Speaker 1: the case of the cordonus that will then lead to
Speaker 1: tensions that will really break out into the open in
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy three, in early nineteen seventy three, when the
Speaker 1: um Orlando MEAs the same person that starts that polemic
Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy two. By this point it becomes Finance
Speaker 1: Minister Um in the end administration and presents a plan
Speaker 1: to sort of devolve some of the factories that have
Speaker 1: been seized during the October crisis right back to their
Speaker 1: original owners. Uh. And then this creates a huge problem,
Speaker 1: huge tension between the base between workers and these factories
Speaker 1: that had sort of sacrificed everything and put their lives
Speaker 1: literally put their lives on the line to seize the
Speaker 1: factories in the first place. Um. And so then you
Speaker 1: have another sort of moment of mobilization of the corzonies
Speaker 1: across the city of Santiago in early vent three. That's
Speaker 1: very much an opposition to the government. Now, can I
Speaker 1: can I ask a brief sort of framing question about this,
Speaker 1: which is that, like, okay, so we talked about this
Speaker 1: in in in the interview we did with some modern
Speaker 1: Chalian activists, but like, what what is the population of
Speaker 1: Santiago relative to like the population of the entirety of
Speaker 1: Chile at this point, Like, how is it? Yeah, that
Speaker 1: is a great question that I don't actually have statistics
Speaker 1: like that. I can rattle no worries in my head. Um,
Speaker 1: but you know, I mean there's there is Uh, it
Speaker 1: is a great you know, Santia always the most populous
Speaker 1: region for sure, all right, and so rather the most
Speaker 1: populous city and then sort of metropolitan region itself is
Speaker 1: very densely popular. And is it still like like a
Speaker 1: pretest nificant like population of the entire country or is
Speaker 1: it less It is a significant population of the whole
Speaker 1: country for sure. Um, but there is tension in this.
Speaker 1: And then this is kind of the reason why I
Speaker 1: always try to steer somewhat away from these types of questions,
Speaker 1: because I'm sure this came up in your conversation with
Speaker 1: Chilean activists, is that you know, there is the phrase
Speaker 1: that Santiago is not Chile, and so there is a
Speaker 1: there is a tendency to rely on statistics of Santiago's population,
Speaker 1: of the metropolitan region's population to say like, oh, this
Speaker 1: is where the majority of people live. So if it
Speaker 1: happened in Santiago, then that must be true for all
Speaker 1: of Chile. Um, and that just isn't the case, right,
Speaker 1: Chile is a huge country. It may be very narrow,
Speaker 1: this is very long north to south, uh and you know,
Speaker 1: it is very distinct across the many regions of Chile.
Speaker 1: And so I have very much on the side of
Speaker 1: those that argue that Santiago is not Chile. Unfortunately, in
Speaker 1: the case of the cordonis, the majority of them do
Speaker 1: exist in Santiago. That said, in Concepcion. Um. You know,
Speaker 1: another Chile further to the south of Santiago, there is
Speaker 1: one of the other cities that we know for sure
Speaker 1: actually did have cordonias that were moderately successful as well.
Speaker 1: In fact, there is and now I'm completely forgetting her name, um,
Speaker 1: but there is a historian that has published a book
Speaker 1: about the cordonis in Concepcion. This is one of the
Speaker 1: few studies that sort of tries to look at cordona
Speaker 1: Is beyond Santiago itself, you know, And a very well
Speaker 1: taken point um on on my part here that like
Speaker 1: you know, a lot of our discussion today has been
Speaker 1: about Santiago, and so it's very much limited to Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is a this is a problem that you get
Speaker 1: a lot with like large urban movements, like I mean,
Speaker 1: so I run into Tianamen all the time, where it's like,
Speaker 1: you know, okay, so Tianeman, there's there's there's the big
Speaker 1: thing in Tianament. But this happens like cities all over
Speaker 1: China and there's just nothing. There's like almost nothing that
Speaker 1: has ever sort of like been written or has gotten
Speaker 1: out of what happened to everywhere else in the country.
Speaker 1: And so you get this, you get this very myopic
Speaker 1: view of like what was happening that I think loses
Speaker 1: a lot of the sort of like I mean, a
Speaker 1: lot of the diversity and a lot of the sort
Speaker 1: of you get a reality that is shaped by the
Speaker 1: specific experience of one place, which is not the safic
Speaker 1: experience of every other place, right exactly So like in
Speaker 1: the case of like Santiago and Cordona's right, like the
Speaker 1: labor working class that's making up this is factory labor,
Speaker 1: as we were saying, at the sort of level of
Speaker 1: consumer products. Right, Let's say, if you've had a cordon
Speaker 1: and say about Crazo, uh, the sort of coastal city
Speaker 1: of the ports city, um where you have a much
Speaker 1: different labor force, right with doc workers things like that,
Speaker 1: You're going to have a much different formation that's going
Speaker 1: to take place. And so as much as like my
Speaker 1: initial sort of attempt to understand the differences within the
Speaker 1: geography of Santiago, um, you know, I think was important,
Speaker 1: I always have to remind myself that, like, it's still
Speaker 1: just this one city, which is very different from the
Speaker 1: experience of a vast majority of chill lands. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's definitely a moment in which you know, there is
Speaker 1: still a very large rural population for sure, And I
Speaker 1: guess like that that brings me to so like, yeah,
Speaker 1: in in terms of sort of okay, I guess there's
Speaker 1: two directions here. One I guess is about what is
Speaker 1: the like, what is the rural population doing like while
Speaker 1: this is going on. And the second one, well, I
Speaker 1: guess I guess we could start there. Yeah. I mean,
Speaker 1: as we sort of mentioned earlier, there isn't a growing
Speaker 1: reform that is happening, right, and you are having a
Speaker 1: labor movement that is picking up rapid steam in the countryside, right,
Speaker 1: and you are having land seizures that's that are taking
Speaker 1: place and picking up steam. Um, and so that's a
Speaker 1: lot of what's going on in the countryside is UH
Speaker 1: both UH an increase in land seizures UH and increasingly
Speaker 1: militant land seizures. Is that, But you're also having UM
Speaker 1: an increased unionization. Right. So the labor code in Chile
Speaker 1: had a different set of regulations for rural labor than
Speaker 1: it did for urban or factory labor. Right. And so
Speaker 1: one of the things that on the end a period
Speaker 1: that we see is a sort of flourishing of organized
Speaker 1: labor in the countryside. So you are having a lot
Speaker 1: of party militants going out into the countryside as well
Speaker 1: as UH labor leaders locally in the countryside that are
Speaker 1: organizing rural laborers. UM. So you are having mass um
Speaker 1: union drives unfortunately, and I will be the first admit
Speaker 1: that I am largely you know, and this is again
Speaker 1: a consequence of like being an urban historian, I am
Speaker 1: largely ignorance of the inner dynamics what is happening on
Speaker 1: in the countryside. UM. Scholars like Florencia Malon or Heidi
Speaker 1: Tinsman have both produced outstanding works on this question. UM
Speaker 1: in terms of the relationship between land seizures and gender
Speaker 1: and indigenosity UM that is taking place on the countryside.
Speaker 1: So I guess, yeah, so you know, okay, so we yeah,
Speaker 1: we can't get it too much detail on this, but
Speaker 1: I would would it be broadly like accurate to say
Speaker 1: that it's not true that you're dealing with a situation
Speaker 1: where there's a huge sort of divide in the level
Speaker 1: of mobilization organization between the city and rural regions like that.
Speaker 1: This this isn't like a sort of like like you're
Speaker 1: not dealing with like like a vonde peasant situation where
Speaker 1: you have this enormous sort of reactionary base in the
Speaker 1: country side. Right, Yeah, you know, you definitely don't. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's definitely not that UM. And you know there are
Speaker 1: attempts over the course of the illenda years, you know,
Speaker 1: the mirrors one of the sort of fronts that this
Speaker 1: is playing out in. But even the cordonates themselves, right, So,
Speaker 1: like one of the initial UM rallies and sort of
Speaker 1: mobilizations of the studios Maipu cordone is for UM the
Speaker 1: jailing and imprisonment of a series of rural militants and
Speaker 1: rural labors that in the area of Malipia. UM there
Speaker 1: are some activists and workers that are jailed UH and
Speaker 1: those the cordon actually marches into the city of Santiago,
Speaker 1: into the downtown part of Santiago to demand their release. Um.
Speaker 1: And this is like a disparate geography here that we're
Speaker 1: talking about, and so UM it is you know, this
Speaker 1: is an instance in which he's trying to see these
Speaker 1: sort of links be both be made and strengthened between
Speaker 1: UH factory labor in cities and world labor in the countryside.
Speaker 1: And I guess it brings me to the second point,
Speaker 1: which is like, Okay, so there is a right in
Speaker 1: Chile and it is not happy, um very much. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I guess one of the things I guess I
Speaker 1: wanted to talk about was so my my impression about
Speaker 1: a lot of what is happening in nine seventy three
Speaker 1: has to do with the fact that Chile's like trucker's
Speaker 1: movement is really right wing and that that has well,
Speaker 1: so part of that. Part of that is the CIA.
Speaker 1: Part of that is just this like a like part
Speaker 1: of it is the CIA's ability to keep striking truckers
Speaker 1: afloat and they're not working on. Part of it also
Speaker 1: is a consequence from this moment in October, right, in
Speaker 1: which the national business elite and national economic elite in
Speaker 1: Chile transform that trucker strike into the boss's strike. Right,
Speaker 1: So you do have this alliance being formed and strengthened
Speaker 1: at that moment as well, which will, as you're referring
Speaker 1: to invent three, there is another truck or strike that
Speaker 1: takes place that has even been more crippling in some
Speaker 1: senses than the initial one. Yeah. And then also also
Speaker 1: as I will mention literally every time, even though I
Speaker 1: I don't know if I can say that on air,
Speaker 1: but the part that I can say on air is um,
Speaker 1: yeah to their eternal, ignominious non glory. The a f
Speaker 1: l c I O is also heavily involved in that
Speaker 1: which is fun and good and uh yeah, a f
Speaker 1: l c I Oh, please stop overthrowing governments, helping deference.
Speaker 1: It's a very it's a very afi c IO history
Speaker 1: in relationship is actually very fascinating because during the dictatorship
Speaker 1: they will actually be on the other side and actually
Speaker 1: helping labor get back on its feet. Um and as
Speaker 1: a key point of resistance. So they're um in the
Speaker 1: late nineties of these organizing a boycott of Chilant products,
Speaker 1: which actually is a key point of pressure on the
Speaker 1: dictatorship to begin allowing for new um for a sort
Speaker 1: of new labor movement to begin emerging. Yeah, which that
Speaker 1: I at some point like I don't I don't think
Speaker 1: it can happen here, but I just did the podcast name,
Speaker 1: but yeah, I don't don't think. I don't think it
Speaker 1: can be this time. But like, yeahs at some point
Speaker 1: I do want to take a deeper dive into sort
Speaker 1: of like what the a f l C I O
Speaker 1: is doing through this period because they are like they're
Speaker 1: all over like yeah, there's a fascinating history. Yeah, Like
Speaker 1: I mean like you know, like my my, my, my
Speaker 1: last a fl C what are you doing things for
Speaker 1: this episode? Is so the fl C has the policy
Speaker 1: where like they don't like they don't associate with like
Speaker 1: like state union federations and they make one exception for it,
Speaker 1: and it's State Union Federation of the military died katorship
Speaker 1: in South Korea, which is like it like a good job, guys,
Speaker 1: like doing great here, this is going great. Yeah, but yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess can we can we get into sort of
Speaker 1: the the crisis is that like are the crisis that
Speaker 1: like precipitate the end of all end A totally yeah.
Speaker 1: So by this point, you know, as I mentioned by
Speaker 1: the opposition is largely um disarticulated. You have the National Party,
Speaker 1: you have the sort of far right organization UM that
Speaker 1: would be translated as Fatherland and Freedom pot three. I
Speaker 1: delivered that, or I translated as father land and freedom
Speaker 1: because I think it has a better, it conjures it better.
Speaker 1: Others will translated as father land and liberty. UM. But
Speaker 1: I'm a sucker for a literative forms, and so that's
Speaker 1: the translation that I use. I also think it conjures
Speaker 1: more the sort of fascistic elements, which this very much
Speaker 1: was a fascist organization. UM. Yes, No, I mean a
Speaker 1: lot of you know low Chicago boys will have ties
Speaker 1: to Pot three Oliver to that um. And so there
Speaker 1: have you know, rightest shock troops that are fomenting conflicts
Speaker 1: in the streets, um, that are also setting off bombs
Speaker 1: that are crippling the power grid, especially much later in
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy three. UM. But following that moment in nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy one, when the Popular Unity government is choose the
Speaker 1: alliance with the Christian Democrats, the Christian that pushes the
Speaker 1: Christian Democrats to begin forming an alliance with the National Party.
Speaker 1: And what happens then is that the left wing of
Speaker 1: the Christian Democrats splits from that party to form its
Speaker 1: own party of Left Christians. But then the consequence of
Speaker 1: that is that that means that the more rightest elements
Speaker 1: of the Christian Democrat party can consolidate their power and
Speaker 1: stream their ties with the national power. So that by
Speaker 1: you know, late nineteen seventy two, and very much by
Speaker 1: the March nineteen seventy three elections, which were sort of
Speaker 1: the key electoral moment that everyone was looking to. UM.
Speaker 1: At this moment, um, you have a you have a
Speaker 1: solid alliance of the right. UM. Now the end a
Speaker 1: coalition will win the March elections. UM. And that is
Speaker 1: really the moment that scholars agree that the switches sort
Speaker 1: of flipped for an opposition and they realize that they
Speaker 1: can no longer defeat the popular unique coalition at the
Speaker 1: ballot box, and that they now need to use extra
Speaker 1: constitutional means right, and so they begin developing sort of
Speaker 1: deploying the full force of those means. UM. And here
Speaker 1: is a point where the role of gender is very
Speaker 1: important because a lot of what the Right will do
Speaker 1: will be to mobilize the power of the power and
Speaker 1: symbol of women protesting um as a way to delegitimate
Speaker 1: the end a government and to de legitimate key figures
Speaker 1: uh in the end administration. So earlier there is a
Speaker 1: key protest that happens, which is the march of angry
Speaker 1: pots um and this is a a very traditional form
Speaker 1: of protests in Latin America which the Castle Lazo right
Speaker 1: the sort of banging of pots and pans in protest um,
Speaker 1: but the Right organizes it to be largely carried out
Speaker 1: by women as a way to protest what is seen
Speaker 1: as a you know, a lack of supply of basic
Speaker 1: food necessities for um families in Chile, which you know,
Speaker 1: we now know is a result of black market speculation
Speaker 1: in hoarding on a lot of the part of the
Speaker 1: sort of distribution centers controlled by the Right. Nevertheless, they
Speaker 1: essentially use this symbol of women heads of households marching
Speaker 1: in the streets in opposition to end. So that's one
Speaker 1: thing that happens later in nineteen three they will sort
Speaker 1: of reuse this tactic and deploy women to protest in
Speaker 1: front of UM the houses of key military figures UM
Speaker 1: that are in the Cabinet of End at this point UH.
Speaker 1: This will then forced the resignation of some of these
Speaker 1: figures from the allend cabinet. And then one of the
Speaker 1: key figures that has then replaced in the cabinet is
Speaker 1: none other than a cost Opine Chat. It will be
Speaker 1: welcomed into the cabinet and specifically will be welcoming into
Speaker 1: the cabinet because he's seen as a strict constitutionalist in
Speaker 1: the Chilean military UH and is not seen as any
Speaker 1: sort of threat to what is going on. Meanwhile, in
Speaker 1: late June of nineteen seventy three, there is an attempted
Speaker 1: coup that takes place in which you have a rogue
Speaker 1: regiment of the Chilean Army UM deploying tanks in front
Speaker 1: of Lamlada, the presidential palace in Santiago. UH. That is
Speaker 1: large that is put down. It's also one of the
Speaker 1: last moments that the cord donates themselves will mobilize and
Speaker 1: that all the Coresonists in Santiago will seize their territories,
Speaker 1: erect barricade. It's cut off transportation to prevent any sort
Speaker 1: of large scale coup from taking play essentially to try
Speaker 1: and isolate that regiment just within front of LaMeta, to
Speaker 1: allow for the wings of the armed forces that are
Speaker 1: still loyal to the president at this point to put
Speaker 1: that down. So that has put down, and then in
Speaker 1: between late in June nineteen seventy three and September ninety
Speaker 1: three is what scholars, specifically Peter Winn for two, is
Speaker 1: a creeping coup begins to take place. And the creeping
Speaker 1: coup has, you know, a multi fascist strategy. As I
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier, there is the bombing of electrical grids, so
Speaker 1: you have you know, increasing blackouts, instability, things of that nature, right,
Speaker 1: fearmongering in very real sense, palpable senses. UM, you also
Speaker 1: have a shake up amongst different members of different branches
Speaker 1: of the armed forces, which those that are loyal to
Speaker 1: the constitution, that are the constitutionalists, are pushed out, and
Speaker 1: as a result, then you have the coup plotters that
Speaker 1: are ready to essentially overthrow the government. UM achieve positions
Speaker 1: of authority in which that they can give orders. And
Speaker 1: this is a key factor. This may seem like a
Speaker 1: small factor, but the Chilean military had historically been trained
Speaker 1: in the Prussian model of military training. Right, So it
Speaker 1: was a very strict regimented hierarchical structure in which historically
Speaker 1: had been very loyal within that hierarchy. So it was
Speaker 1: important that the coup plotters would achieve positions of higher
Speaker 1: authority to be able to actually effectuate a coup, especially
Speaker 1: after the attempted coup fails in June. So on the
Speaker 1: morning of September eleventh, UM, you have Hawker hunter jets
Speaker 1: that again bombing the presidential palace UH, and you have
Speaker 1: a deployment of UM military forces throughout the city to
Speaker 1: put down any sort of armed force or any sort
Speaker 1: of resistance. Right leading up to this moment, you had
Speaker 1: deployments of both the Chilean militarized police, the Kada brows,
Speaker 1: which are actually functionally militaries. They're part of the armed
Speaker 1: forces in Chile, it's not just militarized in the sense
Speaker 1: of tactics and weaponry, to raid factories in the search
Speaker 1: of arms, right, things of that nature. So you already
Speaker 1: had UM this sort of daily occurrence taking place. In
Speaker 1: a consequence of that, right, is that then these forces
Speaker 1: know the weak spots in these factories, they know the
Speaker 1: capabilities of these factories and things like that. Uh Cordlon
Speaker 1: Vacuna McCane will actually be the place that will witness
Speaker 1: some of the fiercest fighting of what would be referred
Speaker 1: to as the Battle of Santiago. You know, often when
Speaker 1: we talk about the Chilean coup, we talked about strictly
Speaker 1: a September eleventh, ninety three. UM. The Battle of Santiago
Speaker 1: actually rages for a few days after September eleven. It's
Speaker 1: not just a quick UM you know, in and out
Speaker 1: mission there is there is, there are forms of resistance
Speaker 1: that take place UM, and the Namacana is one of
Speaker 1: the places that this takes place. There are two Chilean historians,
Speaker 1: Mario Garces and Sebastian Laba, that published a masterful, wonderful
Speaker 1: book UM that is all about as UM called the
Speaker 1: kun La Legua and Lagua was a historic Pope Lacion
Speaker 1: that was just to the west of the Pacuna Macana
Speaker 1: factory and the workers of factories in Pocuna Macana, specifically
Speaker 1: the Sumar textile mill that we mentioned earlier. UM will
Speaker 1: essentially lead UM a march gathering other workers, saving those
Speaker 1: that they can and essentially holding their ground for as
Speaker 1: long as they can in the Poplacion of La Lagua uh.
Speaker 1: In fact, I have some testimonies of workers and documents
Speaker 1: that I've uncovered. UM. One worker in particular described the
Speaker 1: battle that raged there is as being like hell on earth. UM.
Speaker 1: That they had helicopters firing from the sky, they had
Speaker 1: tanks surrounding them. UM. So they were under fire from
Speaker 1: both the land up in the air, and so ultimately
Speaker 1: then the government is overthrown, right UM. I end. It's
Speaker 1: unclear to this day if I end a committed suicide,
Speaker 1: if he was killed, we just we don't know. We
Speaker 1: do know that he refused to leave the presidential palace.
Speaker 1: We do know that he delivers one final address, very
Speaker 1: famous address UM over the radio of Chile. UM. And
Speaker 1: then after that week we know that that his corpse
Speaker 1: UM appears and a lot of the materials that the
Speaker 1: military will put out. Military takes control of communication networks.
Speaker 1: Many of the communication networks and press networks were already
Speaker 1: controlled by the right UM, so it's very easy for
Speaker 1: them to gain access to these methods UM to sort
Speaker 1: of spread their message. UM. And this is where things,
Speaker 1: you know, historically speaking, get very interesting. In the difference
Speaker 1: between our sort of um conventional wisdom and what actually
Speaker 1: took place it or takes place. Right, The original structure
Speaker 1: of the military junta that takes command was designed as
Speaker 1: a tripartite structure that would rotate amongst different branches of
Speaker 1: the armed forces to prevent precisely what happens with the
Speaker 1: figure of Gusto Pinochet taking power himself, to prevent such
Speaker 1: a thing from happening. Right. Uh. Ultimately, though, over the
Speaker 1: course of the nineteen seventies, you have Pino Chick consolidating power. Uh.
Speaker 1: In fact, if you've ever seen the image of him
Speaker 1: that's sitting cross arm with the sunglasses on, it's like
Speaker 1: one of the most recognizable photos of him from this time.
Speaker 1: That photo is actually the actual original version of the photo.
Speaker 1: You have the full junta behind him taking a picture.
Speaker 1: But yeah, yeah, and it's not so much even he
Speaker 1: did it, but it's that that photo just over time
Speaker 1: became so associated with him because it's such a starring
Speaker 1: image of him sitting there. Um that it it's sort
Speaker 1: of functionally recreated the sort of purging that heat takes
Speaker 1: that he'll carry out essentially. You know, also what they
Speaker 1: will do immediately is that they will close the Congress,
Speaker 1: they will dissolve the COOT, the National Labor Federation that
Speaker 1: we discussed earlier, UH, and they will essentially dissolve the
Speaker 1: UM conciliation councils that oversawing sort of collective bargaining. They
Speaker 1: will freeze any sort of petitions pleegos from factory labors,
Speaker 1: and they will begin to purge labor leaders across both
Speaker 1: the national spectrum of labor leadership as well as you know,
Speaker 1: through the course of and well into will be begin
Speaker 1: purging factory level leaderships. UM. They will institutionalized torture, UM,
Speaker 1: they will institutionalized forced disappearance, and all of these things
Speaker 1: UM constitute how they're essentially able to hold onto path
Speaker 1: hour In those early days, there's a state of siege
Speaker 1: that has declared, which means that all civil liberties UM
Speaker 1: have essentially been suspended. And all of this is in
Speaker 1: the name of national security. And that's really the key thing, UM.
Speaker 1: And so everything from the labor movement is shut down UM,
Speaker 1: and then it will begin to re emerge. And that's
Speaker 1: really like where I think my research and my dissertation
Speaker 1: and of a key intervention that that I'm trying to
Speaker 1: make is that you know, seventy three wasn't the end
Speaker 1: of the story, Like, yes, it was the end of
Speaker 1: the Cordons induced to gothers with a capital C and
Speaker 1: a capital I. But the idea of a territorial labor
Speaker 1: organization will re emerge in the late nineteen seventies and
Speaker 1: in the nineteen eighties when protests against the dictatorship began
Speaker 1: to flourish. And this is something that I mean, I
Speaker 1: guess this is the projecting into the future, but this
Speaker 1: is something that I was I don't know that thinking about,
Speaker 1: I don't quite know how to think about. Which is
Speaker 1: the connection between like can we draw online between the Cardonis,
Speaker 1: the sort of the pro democracy movement that eventually, like
Speaker 1: through Pinochet's incompetence and their skill, like brings down the
Speaker 1: dictatorship and the sort of the really vibrant like me
Speaker 1: really for the last like twenty years, like incredibly vibrant
Speaker 1: sort of like student protests, but I mean just just
Speaker 1: sort of like like leftist street movements in Chile, because
Speaker 1: I mean, like, I don't know, like I guess the
Speaker 1: impression that I got when I was talking to like
Speaker 1: the Chilean organizers was that like organized labor wasn't playing
Speaker 1: much of a role in this, and so yeah, I
Speaker 1: guess I was just wondering, like, how, how how do
Speaker 1: we think about sort of this trajectory? And I know
Speaker 1: this is like fifty years but no, I mean, I
Speaker 1: mean my dissertation is trying to the sort of branch
Speaker 1: this full trajectory. And it's the beautiful, wonderful question. Um.
Speaker 1: And you're right, you know, the the activists that you
Speaker 1: spoke to. Um, that is a very common, um, commonly
Speaker 1: held view. And it's a commonly held view for a
Speaker 1: couple of reasons. One is that one of the what
Speaker 1: is seen as one of the main protagonists in the
Speaker 1: pro democracy movements that take place in the nineteen eighties
Speaker 1: are precisely those figures we talked about at the very
Speaker 1: beginning of our conversation. The Popolodorus the Publodorus are seen
Speaker 1: as the protagonists that protests the dictatorship, largely because they
Speaker 1: are right. This is I'm not trying to say that
Speaker 1: they were not by any means, They clearly were. Um.
Speaker 1: We have great studies of this. Kathy Schneider's book Shantytown
Speaker 1: Protests and p H Chile is just a wonderful study
Speaker 1: of this um. They were protagonists and the geographic space,
Speaker 1: the site of the Pope lacon Is, is where a
Speaker 1: lot of the protests are going down. UM. But labor
Speaker 1: did play a part, and labor did play a key part.
Speaker 1: And this is part of my argument is that not
Speaker 1: only does labor play a part, labor plays a key
Speaker 1: part in initiating the protests that begin in the early
Speaker 1: nineteen eighties. Now by the late nineteen eighties, the there
Speaker 1: people are certainly right that labor is no longer anything
Speaker 1: close to the power it was pre nineteen seventy three
Speaker 1: or even earlier in that decade by any means. But
Speaker 1: in the late nineteen seventies and the early nineteen eighties,
Speaker 1: specifically in the space of a kunamakina and workers that
Speaker 1: are coming out of that tradition play incredibly instrumental and
Speaker 1: key roles. So, for example, there's a gentleman Manuel boost Dos.
Speaker 1: It's a member of the Christian Democratic Party. He's a
Speaker 1: worker at the Sumar Textile mill in the cotton plants. Specifically,
Speaker 1: he will at the time become president of Sumars Cottons Union.
Speaker 1: He will then go on to along with other labor
Speaker 1: leaders found the National Union Coordinator where the c n S.
Speaker 1: You will become president of that and he will become
Speaker 1: one of the key figures along with other labor leaders
Speaker 1: that will initiate and lead to the pro democracy protests
Speaker 1: that begin in the early nineteen eighties. So much so
Speaker 1: that he is UM at one point relegated, which this
Speaker 1: is a way one of the tactics the military used,
Speaker 1: UM would be to relegate uh perceived agitators or provocateurs
Speaker 1: two different parts of the country right out of Stay
Speaker 1: Santiago in the case of Bustos, so at one point
Speaker 1: he is relegated to the far north of the country.
Speaker 1: He's also exiled at a certain point. He's also jailed
Speaker 1: at a certain point. UM. So even if we you know,
Speaker 1: even if we don't look at the archival record in
Speaker 1: terms of what Bustos is saying, what Bustos is doing,
Speaker 1: if we just look at what the military is doing
Speaker 1: to Bustos and to his colleagues in n S, then
Speaker 1: we that should tell us that they perceived them as
Speaker 1: a legitimate threat, and that they perceive labor as a
Speaker 1: legitimate threat. And this really, you know, explains why you
Speaker 1: have a shift in UM. The dictatorship's policies with regard
Speaker 1: to labor between the early nineteen seventies the late nineteen
Speaker 1: seventies and eighties. So here I'm drawing a lot on
Speaker 1: the work of Rodrigo Araya, who is a scholar here
Speaker 1: in Chile who has done a great deal in showing
Speaker 1: that early in the dictatorship you had a series of
Speaker 1: labor leaders who were opposed to Allende, who were still
Speaker 1: labor right, still pro labor, but anti Laftist and anti Allende,
Speaker 1: who take control of some of the key labor federations,
Speaker 1: namely the Copper Federation, and begin to sort of designate
Speaker 1: themselves as the key figures of labor UM. And there's
Speaker 1: an attempt then by the dictatorship, who essentially make a
Speaker 1: corporateist model of labor and integrate them and control them
Speaker 1: from the top down. UM. Ultimately that backfires because in
Speaker 1: doing so, they the military refuses to recognize some of
Speaker 1: these individuals and instill their own um sort of puppets,
Speaker 1: if you will, their own labor leaders, which then causes resentment,
Speaker 1: which then pushes that group to an oppositional stance UM,
Speaker 1: which then allows for more connectives to shoot more connections
Speaker 1: to be made between that group, which would be loosely
Speaker 1: referred to as the Group of ten UH and individuals
Speaker 1: such as Bustos and others that are forming this National
Speaker 1: Union Coordinator. Those two groups will ultimately in the early
Speaker 1: nineteen eighties form a new group, which is the National
Speaker 1: Workers Command UM. And this actually group is formed at
Speaker 1: a point in which Bustos himself has been exiled out
Speaker 1: of the country. UM. So, you know, there's a debate
Speaker 1: to be had with not the formation of the Command
Speaker 1: was an attempt to consolidate control away from the Union
Speaker 1: Coordinator and Bustos, which was much more open to working
Speaker 1: with members of the left and the communists at the time,
Speaker 1: compared to the say of the Group of Ten, who
Speaker 1: you know, we're much more opposed to working with leftists. UM.
Speaker 1: So that's really you know, one of the big differences
Speaker 1: between labor and a pre nineteen seventy three period and
Speaker 1: a post nineteen seventi three period is there's still a
Speaker 1: struggle for labor rights, protection of workers in unionism, right
Speaker 1: to strike, right to collectively bargain. But what's missing in
Speaker 1: that post nineteen seventy three period, or rather what has
Speaker 1: been murdered disappeared, tortured, executed by the dictatorship. Is a
Speaker 1: theory of power for unions, right, the sort of leftist influence,
Speaker 1: you know, you could call it Marxism, Leinism, you can
Speaker 1: call it sort of a social democracy, but some theory
Speaker 1: of power that animated unionism and animated the labor movement
Speaker 1: in the pre nineteen seventy three period, that is is
Speaker 1: essentially being purged over that course of the nineteen seventies
Speaker 1: into the nineteen eighties. UM. But in addition to these
Speaker 1: sort of national level developments, which you know, for me,
Speaker 1: Boostos is the straight line that connects the territory of
Speaker 1: Kunamacina to this national level. Within Vucunumacina itself, you have
Speaker 1: two groups that begin to emerge in the late nineteen
Speaker 1: seventies nineteen eighties. The first would be the Solidarity Group
Speaker 1: UH and then the second would be Union Unity. And
Speaker 1: both of these new organizations emerging of Acunamericana and emerged
Speaker 1: specifically as territorial organizations of labor. So they are in
Speaker 1: opposition too what BOOSTOS and others are trying to do,
Speaker 1: which is reform the sort of national labor hierarchy, hierarchy
Speaker 1: bureaucratic or you know, the bureaucratic excuse me approach to labor.
Speaker 1: They're specifically opposed to that and are arguing that labor
Speaker 1: should be organized territorially because it allows a greater flexibility
Speaker 1: for the workers to respond to the new realities of
Speaker 1: a dictatorship, and specifically to the new realities of the
Speaker 1: new constitution that the dictatorship puts in place in as
Speaker 1: well as the new labor plan that they put in
Speaker 1: place through a series of laws in the late nineteen
Speaker 1: seventies in early nineties that severely curtail labor's ability to
Speaker 1: both organize. So, for example, the closed shop is essentially
Speaker 1: done away with. UH. They also, UM will limit the
Speaker 1: ability to strike. You could you can strike, However, after
Speaker 1: thirty days UM the management can begin hiring scab labors
Speaker 1: essentially to break the strike. And if a strike lasted
Speaker 1: past sixty days, that the management was allowed to fire
Speaker 1: all of striking workers because after sixty days they were
Speaker 1: considered to have walked off the job and we're no
Speaker 1: longer considered employees. Also, one of the key you know
Speaker 1: innovations that the sort of technocratic advisors to the dictatorship
Speaker 1: as um implements in the new labor Code is the
Speaker 1: individual labor contract, right, which means that workers now are
Speaker 1: contracted individually, which also then prevents any sort of national
Speaker 1: level union from bargaining on behalf of a sector wide
Speaker 1: or an industry wide contract. That is no longer allowed.
Speaker 1: And so it's for all of those reasons that you
Speaker 1: have these two groups begin to emerge and saying no,
Speaker 1: we need to focus our efforts on the base, we
Speaker 1: need to focus them territorially. And for me, that is
Speaker 1: a straight line between the legacy of the cordonis and
Speaker 1: what we're seeing in the nineties, and then the other
Speaker 1: sort of discursive straight line, like if that's the material
Speaker 1: kind action, the discursive straightliness of these organizations are using
Speaker 1: the discourse of dignity and a dignified life in the
Speaker 1: ex source material that we have. That makes sense, and
Speaker 1: I think that also, But that also, I guess partly
Speaker 1: explains why, like why organized labor like ceases after that point,
Speaker 1: because I guess it is just sort of like the
Speaker 1: it's the sort of the the anilable shifts in what's
Speaker 1: happening in terms of the actual law. And then actually,
Speaker 1: I don't know, I guess I just should ask about this,
Speaker 1: like is there also a sort of like like you
Speaker 1: also get a sort of like like another sort of
Speaker 1: geographic shift in in how factories are distributed, like through
Speaker 1: the use Totally you have essentially a d industrialization, a
Speaker 1: policy of the industrialization, and you have a total reversion
Speaker 1: to what we can think of as a nineteenth century
Speaker 1: economic export economy UM for Chile. Right, so you have
Speaker 1: much more focus and investment into commodity exports, be it UM,
Speaker 1: the fishing sector, the agricultural sector, things like that. Right. So, like,
Speaker 1: for example, if you go into your grocery store, uh
Speaker 1: and look at some of the fruits, specifically, say grapes,
Speaker 1: more often than not they're going to come from Chile,
Speaker 1: especially in off seasons. Right. The benefit of Chile being
Speaker 1: in the southern hemisphere, for say, consumers in the United
Speaker 1: States is that then you have access to things that
Speaker 1: you wouldn't have access to otherwise. Uh. And so the
Speaker 1: dictatorship will prioritize this UM over the idea of industry.
Speaker 1: So you have a total reversion to UM, importing goods
Speaker 1: and services that would have been produced nationally or locally UM.
Speaker 1: And so what this means then for a lot of
Speaker 1: the labor that happens in these zones right as you
Speaker 1: have massive layoffs. That's another innovation UM that the dictatorship
Speaker 1: and the Chicago Boys will introduce as the ability for
Speaker 1: management to fire UM at a mass level and have
Speaker 1: that be legal UM. And so you have high you
Speaker 1: have skyrocketing unemployment amongst factory label labor, such that like yes,
Speaker 1: by the nineteen eighties have a refounding of a national
Speaker 1: labor confederation also the acronym being the COOT. The difference, however,
Speaker 1: is that it's under such a much different labor framework.
Speaker 1: It's also in a situation in which industrial labor is
Speaker 1: just not the main sector of labor UH and in
Speaker 1: its founding statutes, if the Coup pre nineteen seventy three
Speaker 1: was identified as the only national labor confederation, the statutes
Speaker 1: poste and in the late eighties when it's reformed, allows
Speaker 1: for there to be other national confederations UM. And actually,
Speaker 1: this is one of the great debates that takes place
Speaker 1: between those organizations at the base Infocuamkina and these national
Speaker 1: level organizations is whether or not there should be one
Speaker 1: labor confederation or whether or not there should be many
Speaker 1: different labor confederations organized all ideological lines, which is essentially
Speaker 1: a code word for anti communism. Right. That the idea
Speaker 1: of the ideological labor central was a way to exclude
Speaker 1: the left from gaining control in organized labor like it
Speaker 1: had in the pre nineteen period. And so by the
Speaker 1: dawn of nineteen nineties, when democracy, or rather when democratic
Speaker 1: elections returned to Chile, you have labor in a much
Speaker 1: different position. Uh. And that's why you have this very
Speaker 1: weakening UM series or period under the Concert government, the
Speaker 1: ruling coalition, the governing coalition that takes power in Patricia
Speaker 1: Apo and winning the presidency. Um, it's just much different.
Speaker 1: And it's it's a strait jacket illegally because the ninete
Speaker 1: Constitution is still in place, right, it's still in place
Speaker 1: to this day. Uh. And that's actually been it's the
Speaker 1: period of Concert test that is the period where you
Speaker 1: really have the most weakening of UM labor. It's also
Speaker 1: the period we have the most privatizations that are taking place,
Speaker 1: just former state owned companies. It's we could say that
Speaker 1: it's the period that is the most neoliberal period UH
Speaker 1: in Chile relative to the civilian The period of civilian
Speaker 1: military dictatorship. Yeah, and I guess that's sort of like
Speaker 1: that that that's the thing that it just gets you to, Well,
Speaker 1: the last sort of twenty years of like of student
Speaker 1: led protests and of sort of ecological protests I make
Speaker 1: I guess you like Thempucha have always been like fighting,
Speaker 1: but the way that from from Spanish clone the only
Speaker 1: indigenous group that was never conquered by the Spanish, but
Speaker 1: a gain. But I guess like like the axis on
Speaker 1: which the left is sort of like built on like
Speaker 1: through that period just shifts and that's I guess where
Speaker 1: you get the modern like that the sort of modern
Speaker 1: like configuration of the left that's been in the streets
Speaker 1: and last sort of like you do. And this is
Speaker 1: a this is the reason why I sort of draw
Speaker 1: a hard line ending my study in for two reasons.
Speaker 1: One is that it's the is The first is the
Speaker 1: election of Pineta to the president city, Sebastian Pinietta as
Speaker 1: his first term in and so it's the first moment
Speaker 1: that someone from the concertson is not elected as the
Speaker 1: president they had governed sent from. So um that's really
Speaker 1: the what Peter Win and other scholars have referred to
Speaker 1: as the putch check period which extends all the way
Speaker 1: from three to that moment, is inclusive of the Concert
Speaker 1: government because of fair um adherence to the neoliberal economic model. UM.
Speaker 1: That's when that period ends. Also a year later in
Speaker 1: eleven is when the student protests, and that's when you
Speaker 1: have a new cycle in Chilean social movements led by
Speaker 1: the students. Right prior, you know posted the return of
Speaker 1: democracy again, the return of democratic elections in nineteen ninety.
Speaker 1: I think this is a very important distinction between a
Speaker 1: return to democracy and a return of democratic elections, which
Speaker 1: seems to be a confusion between not a confusion but
Speaker 1: a splippage between the form of democracy, a free and
Speaker 1: fair elections, and the content of democracy UM. And so
Speaker 1: a lot of people will referred to nineteen nineties to
Speaker 1: return to democracy. But I think that the past thirty
Speaker 1: years of governments in Chile shows us, especially the past
Speaker 1: two years of uprising and resistance against that model, show
Speaker 1: us that democracy has yet to fully return UM. But
Speaker 1: in that period, you know, in the nine nineties, on
Speaker 1: street protests were not seeing as an affected effective measure
Speaker 1: UM as a as as the way to protest. Right,
Speaker 1: they obviously were effective in the period of dictatorship UM.
Speaker 1: But after that there's no there there's a nut not
Speaker 1: necessarily discrediting of sorts, right, but there's not the emphasis
Speaker 1: on them that there was during the dictatorship, and certainly
Speaker 1: not that there was in the pre nineteen three period.
Speaker 1: It's not until the students take to the streets in
Speaker 1: eleven that you have this revival of the street protest
Speaker 1: as a as a viable form um of resistance and
Speaker 1: protests in Chile. And you know, it's no surprise then
Speaker 1: that in October twenty nineteen, when the the s e
Speaker 1: though the uprising takes place, that it's students that were
Speaker 1: once again the vanguard of this UM. And you know
Speaker 1: when they're jumping turnstiles in the subways too, in protest
Speaker 1: of proposed transportation hike. UM I was. I was actually
Speaker 1: luckily enough to be living here in early pandemic UM,
Speaker 1: and a lot of people that I spoke to UM
Speaker 1: at protests and things like that, were very quick to
Speaker 1: tell me that it was not thirty pos it's thirty
Speaker 1: years that they were protesting. Yeah, And you know, and
Speaker 1: I guess that also like the left wing forces that
Speaker 1: took over the state like it's it's it's the reason
Speaker 1: why a lot of that wounds up sort of being
Speaker 1: about the constitution, because yeah, you know you still have this,
Speaker 1: you still have Pinochet's like constition remains in fact. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: And how I used to know the name of this
Speaker 1: is and one of the episodes, I think, I think
Speaker 1: like the guy who wrote it like it was like
Speaker 1: an enormous hyak fanboy and called it like the Constitution
Speaker 1: of Liberty or something. Yeah, it was. It was a
Speaker 1: hand it was a hand selected team of very few
Speaker 1: individuals that was handpicked by the dictatorship to write the constitution. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, there was the there was a veneer of
Speaker 1: democratic support insofar as the dictatorship in nineteen eighty holds
Speaker 1: a referendum on whether or not to vote up, down, yes,
Speaker 1: or no for the new constitution. Right, um, the yes
Speaker 1: vote one. However, there is many sources at the time
Speaker 1: as well as scholars that have claimed that that victory
Speaker 1: was not a valid victory um by any means. Um.
Speaker 1: But you know, right now, in the post twenty nineteen period, um,
Speaker 1: a sort of effect of the uprising that took places,
Speaker 1: there is a constitutional convention that's taking place as we
Speaker 1: speak here in Santiago, UM that's headquartered in the former
Speaker 1: National Congress. During the dictatorship, the h Congress has moved
Speaker 1: to the ports city of the Appraiso away from Santiago,
Speaker 1: but in the old National Congress building is where the
Speaker 1: new Constitution provision has taken place. And actually two nights
Speaker 1: ago there was a marathon voting session in which a
Speaker 1: series of social rights were adopted into the cost into
Speaker 1: the text of the new Constitution. And these social rights included,
Speaker 1: among other things, the right to unionization, the right to strike,
Speaker 1: the right to collectively bargain, the right for workers via unions,
Speaker 1: to have a say in the direction and business of
Speaker 1: an enterprise of a business itself, to participate in management essentially.
Speaker 1: But it also included things such as a right to
Speaker 1: healthcare publicly funded healthcare system, the right to social security
Speaker 1: publicly funded and it included a right to housing, which
Speaker 1: specifically include the phrase of a right to a dignified,
Speaker 1: adequate home, as well as a right to the city
Speaker 1: that included the phrase that the right to the city
Speaker 1: is for the development of a dignified life. Uh. And
Speaker 1: so really that is kind of the epilogue UM to
Speaker 1: to the story that we've been talking about this whole time. Now,
Speaker 1: you know, we don't know if the constitution itself will
Speaker 1: be adopted. Um. There's going to be an exit vote
Speaker 1: on September four of this year in which Chileans, under
Speaker 1: it's a mandatory vote, will vote up or down on
Speaker 1: whether or not to adopt the new constitution. So we
Speaker 1: can't say for certain if these rights will actually become
Speaker 1: rights of citizenship in Chile, but as of now, those
Speaker 1: rights are included in the text that will be voted
Speaker 1: on in September. Yeah, and I think I think that's
Speaker 1: a pretty good place to end it, unless you have
Speaker 1: anything else that you want to know. I think that
Speaker 1: that's a really you know, there's a really nice symmetry there. Um.
Speaker 1: And you know, I stayed up are too late the
Speaker 1: other night watching that vote. I think it went to
Speaker 1: like two in the morning. Um, but it was you know,
Speaker 1: it was an exciting thing to see. Um. And you know,
Speaker 1: it is an exciting moment to be here in Chile,
Speaker 1: especially after having to be away for two years during
Speaker 1: during the pandemic. Yeah. Um, yeah, well, thank thank you
Speaker 1: so much for thank you so much for talking with us. Oh,
Speaker 1: thank you thank you so much for having me. It's
Speaker 1: been a it's been a real pleasure, you know. And
Speaker 1: I hope that um my ramblings are are sensible to
Speaker 1: your listeners, um and um, that they're able to take
Speaker 1: something from it, because I do think there's an importance
Speaker 1: in this history especially you know, this year is the
Speaker 1: fifty year anniversary of the Cordonos emergence, and so it's
Speaker 1: a great time to to sort of spread knowledge of
Speaker 1: this this moment in tril in history. Yeah, and I
Speaker 1: guess do you have anything like that you want to plug?
Speaker 1: Uh No, I don't have anything specifically, Um. Yeah, no,
Speaker 1: still cranking away in the archives and working on my dissertation.
Speaker 1: So sadly I don't have a book to plug or
Speaker 1: anything like that. But you know, give me a couple
Speaker 1: of years. Uh, and I a book back on when
Speaker 1: it comes out. Yeah. Yeah. Well, in the meantime, you
Speaker 1: two can form a large section of industrial democracy in
Speaker 1: your workplace. Involves taking it over. Oh yeah, go go
Speaker 1: do that. This this has been they could happen here.
Speaker 1: You can find us on Twitter and Instagram. It happen
Speaker 1: here pod. Actually, by the time this is dropping, we
Speaker 1: will be a few days away from Merket. Killdoy's new
Speaker 1: series Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff, which is rad.
Speaker 1: You're gonna hear a lot of cool people doing cool things.
Speaker 1: That is dropping on May Day on May one, and
Speaker 1: after that we have we we we have another show dropping,
Speaker 1: which is which is which is a Ghost Church about
Speaker 1: ghost church eat things. It's It's gonna be good. It's
Speaker 1: it's Jamie Loftus. It's Jamie loft Is doing Jamie Loftus
Speaker 1: things about a bunch of a bunch of the sort
Speaker 1: of like American ghost churches and people who talk to ghosts.
Speaker 1: So yeah, go listen to that. Have fun by everyone, Hello,
Speaker 1: welcome to it could happen here the podcast that is
Speaker 1: my podcast Now. I'm your host, Margaret Killjoy and with
Speaker 1: me is the Webby Award winning Sophie Lichterman as our producer,
Speaker 1: as well as the actual hosts of the show, who
Speaker 1: go without mentioning because I don't see any reason to
Speaker 1: include them. Can that just be the intro to every
Speaker 1: episode from now? This is better than our all of
Speaker 1: our regular intros. Oh I loved that. Um yeah, so
Speaker 1: what are we talking about today? Also on podcast, Garrison
Speaker 1: Davis and Christopher Wong Lou. Yes. So, so today we
Speaker 1: are we are talking about the sort of long and
Speaker 1: incredibly tragic history of Japanese anarchism. Well, okay, actually Japanese
Speaker 1: anarchism before World War Two, because after World War Two
Speaker 1: was an entirely different story. And as much as I
Speaker 1: love people in construction helmets just like beating the ship
Speaker 1: out of cops with large sticks, uh, that story is
Speaker 1: extremely complicated. If you want to hear it, talk more
Speaker 1: about that story a little bit. Uh. The third part
Speaker 1: of my Nobasi Kikishi episode has a lot of people
Speaker 1: in construction help us with sticks. But you know this
Speaker 1: is you know, okay, So the history of anarchism generally
Speaker 1: is the history of tragedy, but even by by anarchist standards,
Speaker 1: the the history of Japanese anarchism is just an absolute
Speaker 1: welter of heartbreak and loss. Um. Out of all of
Speaker 1: the people that we're going to talk about today, exactly
Speaker 1: one of the non Russian anarchist is going to live
Speaker 1: to see world the end of World War two, and
Speaker 1: he's Korean. Every single other person is either going to
Speaker 1: be executed by the state, assassinated, kill themselves, drink themselves
Speaker 1: to death, so this is uh, this is this is
Speaker 1: an extreme bleak story in a lot of ways. Good
Speaker 1: to have one of those optimistic episodes every once in
Speaker 1: a while. Yeah, you know, I mean I think the
Speaker 1: gets thrown down a well. Uh, well, okay, it's it's
Speaker 1: unclear whether anyone got thrown down away. I'm sorry, I'm
Speaker 1: skipping ahead and I don't actually know. Well, we will,
Speaker 1: we will get to the wells uh yeah. I also okay,
Speaker 1: so there's a lot of Japanese anarchists and we don't
Speaker 1: have that much time. So if you're like in a
Speaker 1: sawa u sakataro, stand um, I'm sorry, we can't cover
Speaker 1: all of them. Do you ever think about the history
Speaker 1: of anarchists in Japan? That is weird is that the
Speaker 1: beginning of the story pre dates they're actually being anarchists
Speaker 1: in Japan, or specifically, they're being up in the anarchists. Um.
Speaker 1: There's this huge degree of sort of like cultural exchange
Speaker 1: and influence running between Japan and Russia by riche of
Speaker 1: the fact that they are, you know, next to each other, um,
Speaker 1: and especially in the seventies and eighties. This is one
Speaker 1: of the sort of this is important again because Russia
Speaker 1: in this period is like this is like the hotbed
Speaker 1: of anarchism, right, like they're they're killing, they're killing those
Speaker 1: are they're they're they're doing all the things. They're going
Speaker 1: to the countryside there. The Russian anarchists are short of
Speaker 1: on the move, and a lot of things the Russian
Speaker 1: anarchists wind up like in Japan, baccoon In is there
Speaker 1: for like he like he has some extremely complicated arrangement
Speaker 1: who like he like sneaks on a boat and he
Speaker 1: like gets out and he beats one of the sort
Speaker 1: of like samurai like Beiji Restoration revolutionaries and they chat
Speaker 1: for a bit and then he leaves. So he he
Speaker 1: you know, but you's not. This is when he was
Speaker 1: escaping Siberia. Yeah, well I think, yeah, he's get my Siberia.
Speaker 1: And then he somehow convinces like the American embassy or
Speaker 1: something to like let him on a boat to Japan.
Speaker 1: It's it's a very weird story. It's like all things
Speaker 1: bakun In are. But the most problem in anarchists to
Speaker 1: spend time in Japan is uh Lev Meshnikov. Um Mashnikov
Speaker 1: is like he's like a pretty big deal in Russian
Speaker 1: Revolutionary circles like he's he's considered like okay, so the
Speaker 1: big sort of like anarchists left wing moving to Japan
Speaker 1: is the populist right. It's called the road nicks Um
Speaker 1: and there there's two big figures in it. There's uh
Speaker 1: Nikolai Turnachevski and uh this guy, uh Lev Menshikov, and
Speaker 1: you know, he's Manikov like he knows everyone he knows,
Speaker 1: like he's friends, was just like every single person and
Speaker 1: we will get too more of his friends later. But
Speaker 1: like he's a kind of part of bakun in Um.
Speaker 1: He he has. He has a very similar career to
Speaker 1: Beacun in a lot of ways, where he just sort
Speaker 1: of like runs a especially like Eastern Europe. He's like
Speaker 1: runs around the world being in revolutions um, which is
Speaker 1: good work if you can get it. Yeah, yeah, it's
Speaker 1: it's pretty exciting. And he doesn't die, which is sort
Speaker 1: of incredible. Well, I love that for him, So he's
Speaker 1: still around. Yes, this is very sad, you know, I
Speaker 1: mean he look, look, this is this is the goal
Speaker 1: of Russian cosmism. No is it actually cosmism? I have
Speaker 1: no idea. Yeah, the cosmonaut people, yeah, yeah, yeah, they
Speaker 1: would bring back all the dead people. Oh no, I
Speaker 1: don't know about this. I only know a weird thing
Speaker 1: where there was like anarchist cosmonauts in like nineteen twenties Russia. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so the their their whole thing was like, Okay, so
Speaker 1: they thought that the anarchists had like been defeated in
Speaker 1: the revolution because they were insufficiently committed to bringing the
Speaker 1: dead back to life, and that that that, you know,
Speaker 1: the whole thing was like they like they're there's some
Speaker 1: the people who were involved in the Soviet like rocket programs,
Speaker 1: and they're doing this because they want to colonize the
Speaker 1: Moon and Mars so they can fit all of the
Speaker 1: dead poleteria they're gonna bring back to life. Wait, are
Speaker 1: you telling the truth to me? This is true? This
Speaker 1: is this is I've been trying to fight for the
Speaker 1: Anarchist Necromancer League for so long, which our slogan is
Speaker 1: um raised the dead to fight like hell for the living.
Speaker 1: That's that's It's incredible. But yeah, no, like the Russian cosmism,
Speaker 1: it's a weird one cosmism. It's like a weird mix
Speaker 1: of like like natural philosophy quote unquote, which is just
Speaker 1: like different films or like folk magic or whatever, and
Speaker 1: like religion and spiritual stuff. But also it's like a
Speaker 1: predecessor to like the modern transhumanism. Um, it's an it's
Speaker 1: an interesting little collection of ideas that was popular at
Speaker 1: the very beginning of the twentieth century. It's it's part
Speaker 1: of my thesis that no one normal has ever been
Speaker 1: involved in the production of a rocket like I mean
Speaker 1: yeast like on the so made in and then there's
Speaker 1: just like the Nazis and it's like, oh, zero normal people.
Speaker 1: I have no counterargument there was that because there was
Speaker 1: the guy who did all the multi stage rocketry, the
Speaker 1: nihilist who killed the czar, who built the bomb that
Speaker 1: killed the Tzar. He like when I talked about this
Speaker 1: in my podcast, probably already listened to this. You have
Speaker 1: a podcast? WHOA, yeah, I really just I'm here. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna plug this every like five minutes. On this episode, um,
Speaker 1: you can learn about the bomb maker who killed the
Speaker 1: czar and his what he brought to the world in
Speaker 1: terms of rocketry and manned rocket travel. Anyway, please continue
Speaker 1: on what show Margaret? Well, okay, is this podcast that
Speaker 1: I'm recording on right now? When does it come out.
Speaker 1: When are you listening to it, dear readers. Okay, well,
Speaker 1: then next Monday you can listen to cool people who
Speaker 1: did cool stuff, which is my podcast. Yeah, I'm so
Speaker 1: good at my up. Anyway, my job is to interrupt
Speaker 1: you with please tell me more about the cosmos and
Speaker 1: how they relate to Japan. The Cols was actually nothing
Speaker 1: to do with this, unfortunately, but yeah, but lev uh
Speaker 1: lev Meshnikov like he also he like fights with Garibaldi
Speaker 1: to reunify Italy. He's just like all over the place.
Speaker 1: But he's an interesting guy because okay, so there's like
Speaker 1: a lot of foreigners who go to Japan, but he
Speaker 1: like makes Japanese friends and like learns Japanese before he
Speaker 1: goes there, which makes him like utterly different than like
Speaker 1: the people who are writing like Westerners who are writing
Speaker 1: but Japan in this period, who like don't speak very
Speaker 1: good Japanese and never leave their houses. So nothing has changed.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, well like except weirdly this one guy is
Speaker 1: doing better. Oh no, I mean nothing has changed from
Speaker 1: now no where. No Westerners actually they just pretend to
Speaker 1: care about Japan. Okay, yeah, it's a it's it's time.
Speaker 1: There's actually That's one of the brunning themes of these
Speaker 1: two episodes is like there's a lot of stuff about this,
Speaker 1: about anarchism and about Japan just like don't change. But
Speaker 1: you know, so one of the things that winds up
Speaker 1: doing is he winds up spending two years teaching at
Speaker 1: this thing called the Tokyo School of Foreign Languages. And
Speaker 1: this this is a bunch of major impacts, one of
Speaker 1: which is on Masnikov himself, who he becomes heavily influenced
Speaker 1: by by the Major Restoration, which he thinks of as
Speaker 1: like this like but he looks at it, this is
Speaker 1: like as a revolution, like this is an anti feudal revolution.
Speaker 1: This is the most successful social revolution of the century.
Speaker 1: It's like he thinks that it's like destroyed the sort
Speaker 1: of stratified class system and creates this like possibility of
Speaker 1: like mass social mobility for commoners. And Okay, so this
Speaker 1: is like not the best interpretation of what's going on
Speaker 1: with with the Major Restoration. Where I mean, so the
Speaker 1: Major Restoration sort of the field system in Japan, it
Speaker 1: does a lot of other bad things. What is it?
Speaker 1: Like I don't know that much about this, yea, So
Speaker 1: maybe the audience doesn't either okay, so the major restoration
Speaker 1: is a thing that happens where so so Japan has
Speaker 1: been ruled by a shogun for like a long time,
Speaker 1: and the shogun runs the Fueld system. It's very elaborate.
Speaker 1: Everyone has at least sort of minute hard prodcasts. But
Speaker 1: eventually there's this kind of um like that, there's there's
Speaker 1: this sort of it's complicated. It's this kind of nationalist
Speaker 1: movements by a bunch of um like a bunch of
Speaker 1: the samurai clans. Who this is? This is happening in
Speaker 1: the six season, they mobilized to overthrow like the shogunate
Speaker 1: and basically like restore the emperor to power. The emperor
Speaker 1: has been like a puppet head like figurehead guy for
Speaker 1: like two years and they bring it back to power.
Speaker 1: Because I'm a hack of a fraud and a fraud.
Speaker 1: I'm forgetting their exact slogan. It's some it's something like
Speaker 1: it's Revere the Emperor, and I can't remember what the
Speaker 1: other part of the slogan is. It's very similar to
Speaker 1: that to the Box rebellions. Looking it's it's this sort
Speaker 1: of I mean, there's a lot of things going on here.
Speaker 1: It's kind of a reaction to so in the in
Speaker 1: the sixties, like Japan is sort of forcibly opened to
Speaker 1: the world by like Comma our Paris showing up with
Speaker 1: a bunch of like the largest gunboats anyone has ever seen. Um.
Speaker 1: And this like this forces Japan to sort of like
Speaker 1: abandon its isolation dispositions. And yeah, and you know, and
Speaker 1: you get this sort of classic intellectuals you're looking at
Speaker 1: this and they're going like, Okay, if we don't do something,
Speaker 1: like we're gonna get colonized. And so they do. And
Speaker 1: the thing that they do is that they do this
Speaker 1: revolution and they overthrow um, they overthrow the shogunate. There's
Speaker 1: all this like there's there's like a trillion anime set
Speaker 1: in this period because there's like that, There's there's like
Speaker 1: like there there are there are squads of samurai swordsmen
Speaker 1: like running around like stabbing each other in Tokyo with
Speaker 1: like kyoto and like it's it's wild, it is it
Speaker 1: is a it is a time and and this sort
Speaker 1: of this is what sort of consolidates the modern Japanese
Speaker 1: nation state. Um. You know, I've talked about this in
Speaker 1: my Kishi episodes, but like it sets off this wave
Speaker 1: of colonialism. They like they conquer Okaido, they conquer the islands,
Speaker 1: they do all this horrible colonialism stuff. But there's there's
Speaker 1: it's really unclear what the revolution is actually going to
Speaker 1: mean because like there has been a revolution, right, like
Speaker 1: the sort of like feutal like class system has been
Speaker 1: swept away. There's all of this sort of there's all
Speaker 1: this this energy and the masses. There's like one of
Speaker 1: one of the things that Meshakov finds is like he
Speaker 1: so he gets to Japan in like the in the
Speaker 1: eighteenth seventies um, and he's seeing like the first size
Speaker 1: of discontentment with with the sort of the major restoration um,
Speaker 1: which is the restoration of the emperor um. Because there's
Speaker 1: a lot of people who look at this and they're like, oh, hey,
Speaker 1: we're gonna we finally like defeated the sort of olig
Speaker 1: Art class that like rules all of us. And then
Speaker 1: there's all do olig Art class and they're like wait,
Speaker 1: hold on. And so there's there's like there's a series
Speaker 1: of like ex samurai rebellions. There's this whole sort of
Speaker 1: like like he he like Mashakov literally like gets there
Speaker 1: in the middle of an uprising, and he's just like
Speaker 1: in this rereaes he has nobody what's going on because
Speaker 1: the guy he'd been talking to winds up being in
Speaker 1: the uprising, and you know, so he gets there and
Speaker 1: but what what what he sees also is he sees upheople.
Speaker 1: But he sees that this enormous network of like cooperative movements.
Speaker 1: I mean, he's a bunch of mutual aid groups. He
Speaker 1: sees like villages who are like pooling all of the
Speaker 1: resources they can send kids to like school in the cities.
Speaker 1: He sees like he sees the government failing to provide
Speaker 1: services for people because there's an uprising going on, and
Speaker 1: also the governments and so people are sort of people
Speaker 1: taking care of each other. And this has an enormous
Speaker 1: influence on him. Um and he starts to you know,
Speaker 1: like the way he thinks about anarchism changes, and he sees,
Speaker 1: like he starts to think about sort of like anarchism
Speaker 1: is cooperation, Like mutual cooperation between people who like mutual
Speaker 1: aid enters the sort of lexicon. And Okay, so there's
Speaker 1: a there's a modern historian named show Kota She who
Speaker 1: writes this book called Anarchist madernity, anarchist magernity cooperatism. Wait,
Speaker 1: hold on, yeah, anarchist magernity cooperatism and Japanese Russian intellectual
Speaker 1: relationship modern Japan. And he makes the argument basics, yeah,
Speaker 1: there's there's two there there there, it's a it's a
Speaker 1: better title than I'm reading it, because there's there's two.
Speaker 1: There's like a heading and like a subheading straight because
Speaker 1: I'm flound But she's making the argument that this this
Speaker 1: is like this is actually like something that's very important
Speaker 1: to development of Marco communism because this guy he knows everyone,
Speaker 1: like did the anarchist geographer, like at least Rick LuSE.
Speaker 1: I can't pronounce his name. I think it's lu Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think so, but I can't not with a gun
Speaker 1: to my head, I'm not sure. Yeah. Yeah, Like their
Speaker 1: roommates like they're like they're like they lived together for
Speaker 1: like a while, and like he he he writes the
Speaker 1: Japan entry and like the encyclopedia, he's friends with Kropotkin.
Speaker 1: And after after his his sort of like thoughts starts
Speaker 1: to change about mutual aid, you start to see a
Speaker 1: lot of the same stuff, like you know, like this
Speaker 1: is like he's he's there before Karpokin writes mutual Aid,
Speaker 1: and then you see you see all the sort of
Speaker 1: mutual aid stuff popping up Kropotkin, And you know, I
Speaker 1: don't know how seriously to take the argument that like
Speaker 1: you're sort of seeing like that that a lot of
Speaker 1: this theory is sort of a rebound of reflection of
Speaker 1: what they were seeing in Japanese society. But it's interesting,
Speaker 1: and I think I should mention it because I don't know,
Speaker 1: like there's there's this whole sort of intellectual sphere of
Speaker 1: people who were like associated with anarchistic the ever thing
Speaker 1: that happens in this period is that like, um, so
Speaker 1: there's a bunch of like Mashnikov like has a bunch
Speaker 1: of friends in Russia who all got arrested because they
Speaker 1: were in like terrorist groups, and he's able to get
Speaker 1: like a whole bunch of these people too, Like he's
Speaker 1: able to get them like exiled, and their exile is
Speaker 1: they go to Japan, they teach with him, and so
Speaker 1: suddenly there's like there's like a bunch of people who
Speaker 1: are now like these people, these populists are like writing
Speaker 1: stories about like the stuff they were doing, and like
Speaker 1: all the people who are still fighting in Russia. So
Speaker 1: there's suddenly there's all these people who are like reading
Speaker 1: about the Russian populists uh in Japan and and you know,
Speaker 1: and this is there's there's this kind of like anarchist
Speaker 1: cultural sphere that exists in Japan, like before there's anarchists,
Speaker 1: um like EXAs yeah, yeah for Japan as anarchist, they'll
Speaker 1: be like one like yeah, there's like a couple of
Speaker 1: Russian anarchists and like yeah, but like Mashikov leaves at
Speaker 1: one of the other big thing with this is Tolstoy,
Speaker 1: who is like Tolstoy in like nineties like early nights,
Speaker 1: He's like he's the like he I think he's like
Speaker 1: the most translated author like on Earth in Japan. And
Speaker 1: it's they're not just reading his literary work, they're reading
Speaker 1: his like theology is political work, which is important because
Speaker 1: Tolstoy is like a Christian and reco pacifist right, and
Speaker 1: and this influences this. There's this kind of like there's
Speaker 1: there's a lot of sort of like left wing anti
Speaker 1: imperial strains of Christianity that pop up in Japan. And
Speaker 1: this is one of the reasons for US because everyone's
Speaker 1: reading Tolstoy, and so you get the seeds of this
Speaker 1: anarchist movements that eventually sprout into a man named god.
Speaker 1: This guy's name is actually hard Cotu ku SHOOSI. I'm
Speaker 1: butchering the last part of it. I'm sorry. My Japanese
Speaker 1: does not extend to this many years and eyes in
Speaker 1: a row. But kotakudak he's an interesting god because so
Speaker 1: he hasn't so he has like a whole career before
Speaker 1: it becomes an anarchist. He's he's like he's a very
Speaker 1: prep mint journalist, intellectual, Like he writes a newspaper. It's
Speaker 1: very famous. Everyone reads it, and he's the heir apparent
Speaker 1: to this other like very famous sort of liberal journalist
Speaker 1: who again, because Lev Meshnikov knows literally everyone was like
Speaker 1: a friend of Left Meshnikov. I don't. He knows every
Speaker 1: single person on earth. It's incredible, you know that rules
Speaker 1: you know, unless he ever turned if you ever snitched
Speaker 1: to be terrible apparently never did so yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean it's still around, so I mean he still could snitch.
Speaker 1: He's still around. The last the chance, Oh, I guess
Speaker 1: everyone he was snitched on his dead so um makes
Speaker 1: it harder the epic Skipilaria area. Yeah. So Kodaku is
Speaker 1: like he's kind of like a standard liberal, but he
Speaker 1: gets involved with with the anti war movements. Um, specifically
Speaker 1: this this is the the anti uh well is it
Speaker 1: does anti a lot of wars because the jet Japan
Speaker 1: is fighting an enormous series of wars and like the
Speaker 1: early nine hundreds, Um, yeah, they kicked Russia's as at
Speaker 1: that point. Yeah, yeah, fight uh Japan, They fight Japans. Sorry,
Speaker 1: they fight China. Yeah, and do you do you know
Speaker 1: who else is fighting China? I don't know. I'm afraid
Speaker 1: to know. The products and service assist the show. Are
Speaker 1: we supported by American nationalism? Apparently? Yes? Question mark, And
Speaker 1: we're back with the first rush with the first actual
Speaker 1: Japanese anarchist. So in the neteen hundred Cutko writes this
Speaker 1: book called Imperialism Monster of the twentieth Century, which is
Speaker 1: like good yeah, yeah, and this certificate for a number
Speaker 1: of reasons, one of which is it like this is
Speaker 1: one of the first major like books about imperialism. Like
Speaker 1: there there are some other Western writers who stuff like
Speaker 1: predates this, but like this is not hter. This is
Speaker 1: before Lenin has written about imperialism. This is before like Hobson,
Speaker 1: this is before Luxembourg, and I'm just gonna read it
Speaker 1: a little bit from it because it rules. So this
Speaker 1: is from the first section. It's called imperialism a wildfire
Speaker 1: in an open field. Imperialism spreads like a wildfire in
Speaker 1: an open field. All nations bow down to worship this
Speaker 1: new god, sing hymns to praise it, and have created
Speaker 1: a cult to pay to pay it adoration. Look at
Speaker 1: the world that surrounds us. In England's both governments and
Speaker 1: citizens have become fervent acolytes of imperialism. In Germany, the
Speaker 1: war loving emperor never loses a chance to extol its virtues.
Speaker 1: As for Russia, the regime has long practiced to policy
Speaker 1: of imperialism. France, Austria, and Italy are all delighted to
Speaker 1: join the fray. Even a young country like the United
Speaker 1: States has recently shown its eagerness to master this new skill.
Speaker 1: And finally, this trend has reached Japan. Ever since our
Speaker 1: great victory in the Cio Japanese War, Japanese of all
Speaker 1: classes burned with fervor to join the race for an empire.
Speaker 1: Like a wild horse freed from its harness. So you know,
Speaker 1: the one thing that he got incorrect, as as I
Speaker 1: understand by spending a lot of time on Twitter, is
Speaker 1: that actually only the United States is imperialist and any
Speaker 1: actions especially by Russia. I was very confused that he
Speaker 1: included Russia as the I can't finish the sentence of
Speaker 1: the straight face, Um what Russia? Also, how could it
Speaker 1: be imperialism if Lenin hadn't yet defined the term for us?
Speaker 1: This is okay, this is the whole thing. Okay. So
Speaker 1: so Kutko gets like a lot of ship from this
Speaker 1: book because for like from later on, having his leftis
Speaker 1: because like he's insufficiently materialist. It's like, yeah, he is
Speaker 1: mostly just talking, like the books, mostly about like how
Speaker 1: patriotism and nationalism like create this stuff. It doesn't look
Speaker 1: at economics much. But like, okay, there's a whole problem here,
Speaker 1: which is that if you try to apply Lenin's definition
Speaker 1: of imperialism to Japan, it doesn't work because like, like
Speaker 1: what would Japan is invading China? They have like I
Speaker 1: think it's like fifty total factories. Yeah, like that the
Speaker 1: everything is completely backwards, Like it's like yeah, and like
Speaker 1: you know, it's like like like Lennon's imperialism is supposed
Speaker 1: to be like the highest stage of capitalism, but then
Speaker 1: you go to Japan, Japan's like barely started the position
Speaker 1: to capitalism, like if Lettin's imperialism is supposed to be
Speaker 1: about like debt exports, right, but Japan is just conquering
Speaker 1: countries while they're just literally like borrowing massively from whether
Speaker 1: states of funder industrialzations. Everything does nothing, None of it works,
Speaker 1: and Kodaku gets like again he has he has like
Speaker 1: a lot of ship for this, but it's like no,
Speaker 1: she's right, like letting is letting is wrong. Lettings analysis,
Speaker 1: if you try to apply in Japan, does not work,
Speaker 1: and Kodas does so yeah, and you know, Kudako, I
Speaker 1: think like he's keyed into things that the Marxists aren't,
Speaker 1: but like specifically about like about the power of nationalism,
Speaker 1: because you know, I mean like obviously if you if
Speaker 1: you go a bit later, it's like, well, all of
Speaker 1: these people who are like, oh, imperialism is the highest
Speaker 1: age of capitalism, and then all of their parties vote
Speaker 1: to go to war with each other in War one,
Speaker 1: like you know, okay, Cutico I think like gets this
Speaker 1: because his relationship with socialists an NTI imperialism are like
Speaker 1: backward from the Marxist right where the Marxists arrived at
Speaker 1: engine imperialism, like from their Marxism. But Kutko like becomes
Speaker 1: a socialist because he sees it as a way to
Speaker 1: stop wars. Like that's like his big thing is he's
Speaker 1: in the antiwar move when he want he's wars to stop.
Speaker 1: And that's the right direction to do. Ship. You should
Speaker 1: do ship because like you don't pick the label because
Speaker 1: what's cool. You pick You figure out what you believe,
Speaker 1: and then you pick the label that fits what you believe,
Speaker 1: and so of the other way around. You know, yeah,
Speaker 1: and and you know it means that he's less sort
Speaker 1: of like he's less dogmatic than like his successors, because
Speaker 1: you know, I mean because because he's he's working off
Speaker 1: of his actual principles versus sort of like this like
Speaker 1: dictation stuff, and I mean he's he's he in the
Speaker 1: you know, three, he publishes the Ess of Socialism, which
Speaker 1: is like this is like the first like socialist like
Speaker 1: book written by Japanese person. It's like one of the
Speaker 1: I think there's maybe like one or two other ones
Speaker 1: that are before this is this is like the first
Speaker 1: big one and he he he's also like he's involved
Speaker 1: in founding the Japanese Socialist Party and then he gets
Speaker 1: like arrested and sent to the US and something happens
Speaker 1: when he's into you. I don't know, there's I've seen
Speaker 1: like sis conflicting accounts, like I've seen accounts to say
Speaker 1: he joins he joins the i w W. I I
Speaker 1: don't know. I've seen other people said he lived, he
Speaker 1: lived in a commune, like he definitely read gropocket, he
Speaker 1: becomes an anarchist, let's deciety, he did all of these things. Yeah,
Speaker 1: lived in a commune and tried to organize the communy
Speaker 1: with the i w W. But you know, I mean
Speaker 1: he this guy is enormously influential in history of Japanese left.
Speaker 1: Like he's the guy with when he comes back and
Speaker 1: act you know six, He's the guy who introduced the
Speaker 1: concept of the general strike Japan. Like he's the first
Speaker 1: guy to write about it. He's very cool. He he
Speaker 1: also like, yeah, you know, he starts pushing this and
Speaker 1: started this. He starts pushing anarchism in direct action as
Speaker 1: like instead of like doing proliamentary stuff, and he translates
Speaker 1: like Corpocket's work in the Japanese. He translates the like
Speaker 1: the comedy's manifesto. He's his labor organizing. He's sort of
Speaker 1: like all over the place, and you know, like labor
Speaker 1: and the ant one movement are like two of the
Speaker 1: big currents are proucing anarchists. But the the other like
Speaker 1: big current that's making anarchists this period is feminism. Because okay,
Speaker 1: so I stop me if this isn't any way surprising,
Speaker 1: but the late eighteen hunters and early neteen hunters are
Speaker 1: not a time to be a woman in Japan. Really. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's not a good time like anywhere, but it's not
Speaker 1: not even now. It's not the best. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: I will be improved. I will say it's it's it's
Speaker 1: better than this. This is like sure, like the major
Speaker 1: regime is sort of like consultating self is as just
Speaker 1: consultating itself. It gets like progressively more like patriarchal, misogynist.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna I'm gonna read from the book Reflections on
Speaker 1: the Way to the Gallows, which is this It's a
Speaker 1: great book. It's it's an awesome collection of yeah, well
Speaker 1: so that that's uh God, I forget one of the
Speaker 1: Japanese anarchists whose about to die, Like that's the title
Speaker 1: of like a piece that she wrote. Um, and they
Speaker 1: this book is like a collection of of Japanese feminist writings,
Speaker 1: mostly from people who get killed by the state, because
Speaker 1: that's what happens when your feminist Japan in this period. Um.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, it's bad. Okay, So I'm gonna read a
Speaker 1: quote from this. In eight two, the government forbid women
Speaker 1: to make political speeches, and in eighteen ninety made it
Speaker 1: illegal for women to participate in political activities whatsoever. Women
Speaker 1: were forbidden to even listen to political speeches. The Police
Speaker 1: Security Regulations of reinforced these strictures. Article five of the
Speaker 1: regulations prohibited women from forming any political organization whatsoever. Jesus. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like that's like a level of restriction that like
Speaker 1: I'm not sure I've ever seen like that explicit level
Speaker 1: of no, you can't do this. Yeah, I feel like
Speaker 1: it's usually implicit in a lot of Western rays. And
Speaker 1: then also like one of the things that really strikes
Speaker 1: sticks out to my about that is that I'm so
Speaker 1: used to thinking about I think people tend to think
Speaker 1: about like this like linear progress model, where like you
Speaker 1: go back really far, like all women and all other
Speaker 1: oppressed categories had it terrible and then it just slowly
Speaker 1: gets better or whatever. But if they're passing these laws
Speaker 1: in nine hundred, there's an implicit it was a little
Speaker 1: better before. Yeah, yeah, it's very specifically gets worse on them.
Speaker 1: Like so one of the things with the eighteen nine
Speaker 1: legal coaches that didn't like it literally just legally enshrines
Speaker 1: like patriarch control the households and this this is this
Speaker 1: is a massive reactionary shift in in serve of jeoparye
Speaker 1: like domestic and political culture like this, like that that
Speaker 1: kind of patriarchal control the household was like a thing
Speaker 1: in some Samurai families, but like it wasn't a thing
Speaker 1: for there's a huge number of popular classes like just
Speaker 1: that didn't exist and they just legislated into existence. And
Speaker 1: like you know, I mean like the things that the
Speaker 1: things that they're applying here, like women need consent of
Speaker 1: their father to marry. Um is for another quote for
Speaker 1: the book what are the provision has held that quote
Speaker 1: cripples and disabled persons and wives cannot undertake any legal action.
Speaker 1: Fucking he huh. Yeah. So this is this is this
Speaker 1: is an incredibly reactionary state. And there's also like there's
Speaker 1: a lot of sex trafficking going on, like like actual
Speaker 1: like there's a lot of people just being grabbed off
Speaker 1: the street. Um, it's a it's a it is a disaster,
Speaker 1: and it is into this patriarchal mess that like several
Speaker 1: generations of Japanese and ARCA feminists step into. Um. The
Speaker 1: most famous of the first round is Kano Sugako, who's
Speaker 1: she she's a socialist author who conversed to She originally
Speaker 1: social listen. She conversed anarchism, which is like a thing
Speaker 1: that happens a lot in this period. And she she's
Speaker 1: working as a journalist and you know she she's she's
Speaker 1: like she's a very sort of controversial figure in the
Speaker 1: government like hates her. So she meets Kotuku and they
Speaker 1: have an affair. And this is like one of the
Speaker 1: other things that keeps happening here is there's a lot
Speaker 1: of like free love stuff going around the Japanese anarchist
Speaker 1: circle at this time. And this this has two conseq
Speaker 1: which is one is a lot of men use it
Speaker 1: to be really shitty and means there was like there
Speaker 1: is a again, this is this is this is this
Speaker 1: is the big like nothing has ever changed in the
Speaker 1: anchist movement. There are so many relationship drama things nothing.
Speaker 1: There are so many times this last circle like like
Speaker 1: they are two different times when the most famous Japanese
Speaker 1: anchist man and the most famous Japanese ancists women wind
Speaker 1: up in a relationship. Uh it ends with it with
Speaker 1: them explaining the movement and then both dying in prison.
Speaker 1: Like this happens twice. Exact sequence happens twice. It's nuts,
Speaker 1: like they're they're just they're just doing polyquel ship Like it's, oh,
Speaker 1: they just need better mediators. Yeah, well, and I mean
Speaker 1: this is this is the thing with like the Japanese
Speaker 1: like the Japanese anchist movement like has a huge feminist wing,
Speaker 1: but like the men still suck, like you just keep
Speaker 1: being bad and so you know what. The over thing
Speaker 1: about this is that Kono Sugako is like enormously more
Speaker 1: militant than like almost every other any other anarchists that's
Speaker 1: alive in Japan at this point. And so in the
Speaker 1: nineteen ten she gets involved with the plan to assassinate
Speaker 1: the emperor Um and this becomes known as the high
Speaker 1: Treason incidents, and the state like gets wind of this.
Speaker 1: They arrest her, they arrest uh Go Taku, and they
Speaker 1: arrest like twenty two other two yeah, twenty two other anarchists. Um.
Speaker 1: Now like five of these people are like even tangentially
Speaker 1: involved in this plot, um, but they this is okay,
Speaker 1: So I can't say that that the Japanese government only
Speaker 1: does this to anarchist because they do this a fascist
Speaker 1: like once. But like they do this thing where okay,
Speaker 1: So they have a bunch of people that they want
Speaker 1: to execute, right, So they find one person who's like
Speaker 1: an ideological figure and they're like, okay, you're now in
Speaker 1: the middle of this and you're the link between like
Speaker 1: this group and this other group want to kill. This
Speaker 1: other group want to kill this other group want to
Speaker 1: kill And so they convict uh like jo Um and
Speaker 1: uh Ku like they they all get convicted and they
Speaker 1: all get executed. Yeah, And so this case is also
Speaker 1: interesting because there's a bunch of people who the state
Speaker 1: like wanted to kill but they couldn't because they'd already arrested.
Speaker 1: They'd already they like, this is like two years after
Speaker 1: like a mass arrest of like half of the Japanese
Speaker 1: nargist movement. And so they have all these people who
Speaker 1: are in prison, and it's like even by like the
Speaker 1: standards of the Japanese state, it's like, Okay, how are
Speaker 1: we going to convict all of these people who have
Speaker 1: been in prison for two years of trying to of
Speaker 1: like being a part of this plot to kill the
Speaker 1: emperor that was like organized outside of the jail. And
Speaker 1: so this this is the thing that saves like a
Speaker 1: huge portion of the Japanese anarchist movements, that saves it
Speaker 1: from literally so like this the Hydragenon incident kills like
Speaker 1: most of the famous anarchist of Japan, but it leaves
Speaker 1: like like a couple alive. And that's why they're alive
Speaker 1: because they were all in prison. God, wait, how are
Speaker 1: they going to kill the emperor? The plant didn't get
Speaker 1: very far. I think they were trying to use a bomb,
Speaker 1: but the police got wind of it very very early,
Speaker 1: not classes so that they never really got much like
Speaker 1: past the planning stage. Um, this is a shame. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: And do you know what else never gets very far
Speaker 1: plass past the planning stage when they're trying to assassinate
Speaker 1: the emperor of Japan. Is it the ads because they
Speaker 1: don't know how to do direct action because they're too
Speaker 1: in mestion in capitalism? That is, that is actually exactly
Speaker 1: what we were talking about. Margaret, thank you so much,
Speaker 1: and we're back. I was genuinely trying to see if
Speaker 1: I could like think of a of a company that
Speaker 1: had like tried to kill the Japanese emperor, and I
Speaker 1: couldn't think of one. And I was like, hmmm, this
Speaker 1: says something about society. This does. This is a real,
Speaker 1: real solid critique we have here. I really hope that
Speaker 1: ten years from now this all seems very dated. You're like,
Speaker 1: of course someone's major company has tried to never mind,
Speaker 1: one can dream so kinda. Sugaku is dead, Kotaku is
Speaker 1: also dead, and this this means that it's time for
Speaker 1: sort of like another generation of of anarchists to try
Speaker 1: to fill in the gaps. So they're executed. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: they're dead, Like they just die and they kill, they kill,
Speaker 1: they kill like twenty two of the anarchists or something.
Speaker 1: And I mean this is a this is a huge purge. Mean,
Speaker 1: they don't wind up executing just like there's just like
Speaker 1: a like a sympathetic like Buddhist priest. It's executed. Um,
Speaker 1: I when is this? This is nice and eleven sorry, yeah,
Speaker 1: this is nice un eleven um and actually there's nothing
Speaker 1: to think about this kind of Sku becomes the first
Speaker 1: woman ever executed by the happening state. She will not
Speaker 1: be the last, like oh boy, um feminist, yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean equal rights, equal fights. There's another like very influential
Speaker 1: market feminist who's emergence slightly after, like just like in
Speaker 1: like nineteen four nine is each on no way. She's
Speaker 1: an egoist anarchist who eventually last, finally, finally we bring
Speaker 1: it up. That's all I have to say about. That's
Speaker 1: like almost all I had to She she she takes
Speaker 1: over the editorial position of this, uh, this magazine called
Speaker 1: Blue Stocking Magazine, which is like Japan's and I think
Speaker 1: it's it's like this is like the most important feminist
Speaker 1: magazine in Japan, and she takes over the editorial staff
Speaker 1: about it. And her work is really interesting in a
Speaker 1: lot of ways because it just it just straight up
Speaker 1: is contemporary feminism in a way that like a lot
Speaker 1: of the stuff in this period isn't like if if
Speaker 1: you go and read the arguments she's having, she's arguing
Speaker 1: that sex works should be legal and that everyone should
Speaker 1: be should be able to get abortions because women should
Speaker 1: have autonomy over their bodies. Yeah, it's like, yeah, this
Speaker 1: is this is not going to end well for her,
Speaker 1: but you know what, it doesn't end well for any
Speaker 1: of us in a long enough timeline. You know, like
Speaker 1: all that matters is the time of what we do.
Speaker 1: At this time, we are gularly bad. Okay, fine, yeah,
Speaker 1: so yeah, I think so she's able to do this
Speaker 1: for like a year, and the Japanese state looks at this,
Speaker 1: it is like absolutely not and shust the magazine down. Um,
Speaker 1: so she she gets forced to move on to other things.
Speaker 1: And the other thing she moved on she moves on
Speaker 1: to is being extremely heavily involved in the free love
Speaker 1: movement of course. Yeah yeah, and and but also, and
Speaker 1: this is the thing that's that's interesting about the sort
Speaker 1: of periodge of Japanese anarchism is that like the egoists
Speaker 1: are all also Nicholas yeah yeah, yeah, yeah yeah yeah.
Speaker 1: And she's so she she's like heavily involved in labor organizing,
Speaker 1: and this is how she comes into contact with her partner,
Speaker 1: who she's like cheating on her imprisoned husband, who will
Speaker 1: later form the Japanese Communist Party. That's a lot of
Speaker 1: stuff happening. There's there, there's so much, there's so much beef.
Speaker 1: It's incredible. There's there's this like we haven't even gotten
Speaker 1: to the wild part of this relationship yet, okay, which
Speaker 1: is so so okay. So she she comes in contact
Speaker 1: with her partner or person who would become her partner,
Speaker 1: Osaki Sakai, who is like dating another very famous Japanese
Speaker 1: arca feminist, who she stabs him in the neck over
Speaker 1: the fact that she's in multiple relationships at once. So
Speaker 1: this isn't really a free from her point, Yeah, this
Speaker 1: is this is the thing that keeps happening with free
Speaker 1: love of this period. It's like you gotta like, you
Speaker 1: gotta lay down, you gotta make sure everyone's okay with everything.
Speaker 1: They should have seemed to in theory, but in practice
Speaker 1: they sure, yeah, sure do fall apart? Huh yeah? And
Speaker 1: this two divides the Japanese anity. But does she win,
Speaker 1: did she succeed, did she kill him or did he survive?
Speaker 1: That Okay, yeah, I'm just I have there's a special
Speaker 1: place in my heart for split slit throats of patriarchal man. Anyway,
Speaker 1: So most like Kai is also very heavily evolving labor organizing,
Speaker 1: and he he's one of the guys who like turns
Speaker 1: anarchists labor into like a serious political force, which is
Speaker 1: maybe it's good that they survived. Yeah, like it's probably
Speaker 1: net good. But all of the guys in this story
Speaker 1: like suck except do I haven't except here? What about
Speaker 1: the Korean guy? Who? Um oh yeah, we get to him. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's he's kind of like I think he's actually fine. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think maybe the end this story gets weird. Yeah
Speaker 1: we'll we'll we'll get to them in a second. Um.
Speaker 1: But yeah, So Saya Sakai has like he has he
Speaker 1: has this like fusion of like egoism and syndicalism, where
Speaker 1: like the individual ego will be liberated through collective action,
Speaker 1: but the goal of the workers movement is not to
Speaker 1: just like end poverty, it's to like liberate the individual
Speaker 1: and give themselves developments. And he's also this like incredibly
Speaker 1: fierce like like one of his big thing is that
Speaker 1: like he does not want intellectuals anywhere you're the workers
Speaker 1: movement does absolutely not. Yeah, and this is because like
Speaker 1: again he's been around for ages, Like he becomes an
Speaker 1: anarchist around the time when Um Kotaku doesn't like that's
Speaker 1: no six, So he's been like arounded. He's one of
Speaker 1: the guys who survives the high Trees in the incident
Speaker 1: because he was already in prison. Okay, all right, and
Speaker 1: so he like he's one of the people who like
Speaker 1: keeps the sort of flame of anarchism alive after like
Speaker 1: their fashion nineteen eleven. But unfortunately for him Um and
Speaker 1: for eacho, no way, they get caught up in the
Speaker 1: Canto earthquake, of which is this like this earthquake between
Speaker 1: Yokohama and Tokyo alone kills two hundred thousand people. It
Speaker 1: is like it is like it is one of the
Speaker 1: worst like natural disasters. It's it's really bad and in
Speaker 1: immediately gets worse. The state wouldn't use a natural disaster
Speaker 1: to try and further its aims through extra legal means. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So okay, I'm gonna start with one of the ways
Speaker 1: that the genocide of Korean people in Japan at this
Speaker 1: time starts is so there's a bunch of Korean workers
Speaker 1: in a long turre union that's been organized by this
Speaker 1: builit in like left his union guy named Yamaguchi Saka
Speaker 1: and okay, so like they're in this long shore union.
Speaker 1: There's this disaster. They start doing mul a. They start
Speaker 1: going out. They started taking care of so if I
Speaker 1: started giving people food. But you know, they're they're like
Speaker 1: waving red flags and stuff, and the Japanese police lose
Speaker 1: their minds and are like, oh my god, there the
Speaker 1: jet the Koreans are doing socialism and they just start
Speaker 1: killing them and they there's this whole thing about like
Speaker 1: there's these rumors started like Koreans are raping Japanese women
Speaker 1: and it turns into this thing about like looting, and
Speaker 1: then like Korean malcontents are supposed to be like overrunning
Speaker 1: police stations and the lynch mobs. The lists are mostly
Speaker 1: targeting Koreans, but they're also tart, like if you're Chinese,
Speaker 1: if you're from Baku Islands, like they're killing you. Two um,
Speaker 1: they kill two thousand Koreans in Tokyo and another two
Speaker 1: thousand in Yokohama, and like two thousand Koreans in Yokohama,
Speaker 1: that is half the Korean population of the city. And
Speaker 1: these people die like horribly, like because it's not like
Speaker 1: so that the polices are actively hunting them down. Like
Speaker 1: the entirety of Japanese society like remembers that they really
Speaker 1: like killing people and they really like fighting, and like
Speaker 1: you have people like taking their like ceremonial swords from
Speaker 1: like their ancestors who are in the major revolution, Like
Speaker 1: they're taking their katanas going industry and murdering people with them,
Speaker 1: like people just like have fish hooks and they're just
Speaker 1: murdering people in the street. And this goes on for
Speaker 1: like this is on for days, and one of the
Speaker 1: things that happens in this is um, well, okay, so
Speaker 1: the one of the other things happens in this period
Speaker 1: that the Javits government just starts like arresting random left
Speaker 1: iss and executing them. Yeah, and that's what was supposed
Speaker 1: to happen to know to Echo no A and Osaka Sakai.
Speaker 1: But they get arrested by squad and military police led
Speaker 1: by mashachikom Akasu who just she just murders them. Um.
Speaker 1: There's like conflicting stories of how this happened. I there's
Speaker 1: there's one version of it where like he kills them
Speaker 1: and like their six year old nephew and throws their
Speaker 1: bodies out a well. There's another version of it where
Speaker 1: they get strangled and that he strangles have been prison
Speaker 1: and this is like a huge outrage, but it's not
Speaker 1: huge at range because he murdered them as a huge
Speaker 1: outrage because he's supposed to wait for the trial. H
Speaker 1: I mean, and yeah, And this is one of the
Speaker 1: things that like this is this is part of how
Speaker 1: like fascism comes to Japan, is that like he becomes
Speaker 1: a hero for the fascist right, Like he goes to
Speaker 1: prison for ten years supposedly, but he only serves three
Speaker 1: and then he gets out. He becomes a hero, and
Speaker 1: then he becomes basically the head of like the sort
Speaker 1: of fascist secret police in the like Maenturian puppet state.
Speaker 1: But on the upside, he when would Japan loses to war,
Speaker 1: he kills himself. So when I with the story I
Speaker 1: had heard was that the Throne in the Well story,
Speaker 1: and I remember it. It's stuck with me so much
Speaker 1: because the first time I met anarchists from Japan, they
Speaker 1: gave me a zine and it was like Japanese anarchist martyrs,
Speaker 1: you know, like the martyrs of our movement or whatever.
Speaker 1: And I was like looking through it and we're all
Speaker 1: of these children, and it just like really emotionally affected
Speaker 1: me that I was like, oh, y'all's martyrs include all
Speaker 1: of these like literally not like like literal like like
Speaker 1: six year olds and stuff, because you know they came
Speaker 1: and killed not just the grown up anarchists, but the
Speaker 1: baby anarchists or whatever as well. Um, I know that
Speaker 1: this has happened lots of places, but it just it
Speaker 1: really stuck with me. So whether it's true or not,
Speaker 1: the story I heard was this story about the well,
Speaker 1: and then it's stuck with me. Yeah, I mean, like
Speaker 1: the level of repression in Japan, like it's it's unlike
Speaker 1: anything I've ever seen that's not in a country that's
Speaker 1: literally in the middle of the civil war, like they
Speaker 1: just they just like murder people like constantly. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: then this is one of the other things, like one
Speaker 1: of the things that starts the right wing like turn
Speaker 1: in Japanese society is when is when the earth work
Speaker 1: happens and the government is like like they're like the
Speaker 1: police are being like, it's the Koreans. You need to
Speaker 1: go fight the Koreans, and so they do and like
Speaker 1: I mean yeah, like wait, they like blame the earthquake
Speaker 1: on the Koreans. Yeah, well, so everything is there's this fire,
Speaker 1: the fire kills like sixty people, like it it consumes
Speaker 1: they're like they're they're the urban core of uh, what's
Speaker 1: the name of that city, h the urban core of
Speaker 1: Yokohama just goes up in flames, like six people burned
Speaker 1: to death, and that's the government needs some explanation for. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's horrible, but like the governments are explation for it.
Speaker 1: They're like, oh, we'll blame the Koreans. And then suddenly
Speaker 1: all of these people are just like like the whole
Speaker 1: of Japanese society just goes into this total mobilization like
Speaker 1: kill mode thing and they just murder enormous numbers of
Speaker 1: people and this and like that this has this enormous
Speaker 1: sort of like like cultural affection, shifting people back to
Speaker 1: the right and shifting people back towards militarism because now
Speaker 1: they've like you know, like they've they've tasted blood, they've
Speaker 1: like they've gotten this sort of sense of it yeah,
Speaker 1: it is brutal um and before we go, we're gonna
Speaker 1: kill off one more anarchist the team. Can we kill
Speaker 1: off the other team instead? Unfortunately, no, none of them
Speaker 1: die in this story. It's the worst. All of the
Speaker 1: assassination attempts fail. It's so sad. Yeah, I'm sorry sight
Speaker 1: me what I happened. I forgot how depressing this because
Speaker 1: I was I was remembering part two of this, which
Speaker 1: is just like absolutely hilarious, kind of pointless like ideological
Speaker 1: battle over like things that are kind of dumb, and
Speaker 1: then I forgot about the first part of the story,
Speaker 1: which is everyone gets executed. So the last person who
Speaker 1: we're talking about he gets executed is is Fumiko Konako.
Speaker 1: Who is Fumokko? So she she she's a nihilist anarchist,
Speaker 1: but she's different from like everyone else we've talked about
Speaker 1: today so far because when she's a kid, she gets
Speaker 1: sent to live in Japanese occupied Korea, and so she
Speaker 1: goes there and she gets like horribly abused by her family,
Speaker 1: which leads to become like leaves of her becoming a nihilist,
Speaker 1: but it means to like, okay, so like like a
Speaker 1: lot of the anarchists like in Japan talk a big
Speaker 1: game again about anti like imperialism, right, and like they
Speaker 1: will do things like yeah, like they will go fight
Speaker 1: police to try to stop a war for happening, but
Speaker 1: they don't really talk to people in Korea very much.
Speaker 1: And Fumio Kanico was like the exception to that because
Speaker 1: you know, she lived there for a long time. Um
Speaker 1: and she she winds up marrying pack Yol, who is
Speaker 1: a very influential Korean anarchist, and they they do a
Speaker 1: bunch of organizing the specifically like that their their thing is.
Speaker 1: They're trying to like get there, trying to enter the
Speaker 1: Japanese occupation, and you know they're they're doing great work.
Speaker 1: And then unfortunately, after the earthquake, Uh, she and pak
Speaker 1: Yo are and uh, stop me if you've heard this
Speaker 1: one before, they are sentenced to death for a supposed
Speaker 1: plot to kill the emperor. Wait wait now, yeah, we
Speaker 1: already did this part. You're just repeating, Yeah, yeah, they
Speaker 1: do it again. This is the second time. Like they
Speaker 1: just keep doing this and this one it's unclear if
Speaker 1: there was actually a plot, and if there was a plot,
Speaker 1: it's unclear to what extent form can code was like
Speaker 1: involved with it. But while she's gonna get arrogated, she's like,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, no, Like I hate the Emperor. I was
Speaker 1: absolutely involved in a plot to kill him, Like I
Speaker 1: was making a bomb to kill him. Uh. Also, I'm
Speaker 1: an anarchist. And here's like an incredibly detailed sketch of
Speaker 1: like all of the oppression in Japanese society. But I'm
Speaker 1: just gonna tell you, like the person she's like the
Speaker 1: court examiner, who's like and and you know, there's there's
Speaker 1: anything that happens where she and Pacuole are like are
Speaker 1: handed pardons as like the sort of like mercy of
Speaker 1: the Emperor thing, and paciol like takes it but go
Speaker 1: kind of co like they hander the paper and she
Speaker 1: chears it to shreds in front of them. And it's
Speaker 1: so embarrassing that like the record of what happened is
Speaker 1: like sealed until after World War Two because it was
Speaker 1: a big like, um, it was like a big media scandal,
Speaker 1: all of the stuff with them being arrested, right, And
Speaker 1: I'm basically I don't actually know more, but I watched
Speaker 1: a movie once. There's a great movie about this called
Speaker 1: Anarchists from Colony. This part of it. Yeah yeah, and
Speaker 1: she yeah, and like yeah, it's just the whole thing,
Speaker 1: and like that. The government also kind of doesn't want
Speaker 1: to assassinate them because it looks really bad that. I mean,
Speaker 1: they've they've they've picked, they've they've arrested to random people
Speaker 1: who like have done nothing, and they're just gonna kill them.
Speaker 1: But for mechanicals like no, like, I believe in the
Speaker 1: things that I believe in, and I will literally like
Speaker 1: tear up this parted and die for it. And so
Speaker 1: she tears out the pardon and so she goes to prison,
Speaker 1: and she lives long enough to write like the greatest
Speaker 1: entry in the in the genre of an archi feminist
Speaker 1: a Japanese narchi feminist prison memoirs, which is an entire genre.
Speaker 1: There's like multiple books because it keeps happening and these
Speaker 1: people get arrested and set the prison. It's called the
Speaker 1: Prison Memoirs of a Japanese Woman. It's great, everyone should
Speaker 1: go read it. It's it's also extremely depressing because her
Speaker 1: life sucks, but yeah, it's it's it's good. Um. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And so now having killed off the leading intellectuals of
Speaker 1: anarchism again for the second time in a generation. You
Speaker 1: would think that this would this would kill the movement,
Speaker 1: like I think, I think like movements like if if
Speaker 1: you kill they're leading intellectuals, like all of them, like
Speaker 1: twice in like twelve years, like the movement collapses. Yeah. That,
Speaker 1: but at the very beginning there was the guy who
Speaker 1: said keep the intellectuals away from the labor organizing. Maybe
Speaker 1: he is right, well, but this, this is this. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The incredible thing about this is no, it doesn't it
Speaker 1: doesn't kill them. They keep going like and they have
Speaker 1: they have one last glorious, glorious and absolutely baffling hurrah.
Speaker 1: Okay of like in fighting, extremely weird and funny in fighting.
Speaker 1: So yeah, that that's what we're gonna be talking about
Speaker 1: next episode. All right, Yeah, is it time for the
Speaker 1: plug of the plug? Yes? Oh oh, Margaret you who
Speaker 1: have a new podcast about that? It's on this very network,
Speaker 1: Cool Zone Media, on this very network. I have my
Speaker 1: own podcast. Is it called cool People Who Did Cool
Speaker 1: Stuff and Doesn't Believe? So? Does it come out on
Speaker 1: May second? And is it produced by the webby Award
Speaker 1: winning Sophie lie German? Uh? Perhaps? And do episodes drop
Speaker 1: every Monday and Wednesday? I think they do. Uh, that
Speaker 1: is super, super exciting. And you can find that wherever
Speaker 1: you get your podcasts, remember quickly anywhere you get them,
Speaker 1: Like if there's a peddler on the corner who sells
Speaker 1: you podcasts, your pain, get your podcast, get your podcast.
Speaker 1: It's half off today to two for one exactly. And
Speaker 1: where and where can people follow you on the interwebs? Uh? Well,
Speaker 1: for now, you can follow me on Twitter before the
Speaker 1: mass exodus h at Magpie killed Roy. And you can
Speaker 1: follow me on Instagram, which we've all known for a
Speaker 1: very long time is owned by evil people, and that
Speaker 1: is Magpie. No, Margaret killed Roy because I wasn't clever
Speaker 1: enough to get my own name in both places. I
Speaker 1: don't know why I'm explaining this to you, but you
Speaker 1: can follow me on social media and that's where I am,
Speaker 1: and I post pictures of my dog that keeps barking
Speaker 1: in the background while I'm trying to record this episode.
Speaker 1: But but if you, if you follow Margaret, you'll see
Speaker 1: her dog and you'll understand that it is worth it
Speaker 1: because he is handsome, very nice and agrees. Well, I'm
Speaker 1: very excited to start listening to cp w DC as
Speaker 1: just the best. Uh is that the episode episode? I
Speaker 1: guess I'm starting this one. Hi, welcome to take it
Speaker 1: happened here. It's a show. If you're listening to this episode,
Speaker 1: you probably listen to the last one. You know what
Speaker 1: it's about. Yeah, please do don't start. I mean, I
Speaker 1: guess you could start with this one because this one
Speaker 1: is sort of wildly different than the last one. But
Speaker 1: this one we're rewriting it so they all survive. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't. No one gets executed this episode. Yes,
Speaker 1: that is that is a win. And the cosmists come,
Speaker 1: the Russian Cosmist come, and they resurrect at least Canikofumico um,
Speaker 1: the rest, give or take whatever. Maybe the children could
Speaker 1: be resurrected. That's how I would prioritize it in that order.
Speaker 1: That makes sense. Yeah. Um. And that voice you're hearing
Speaker 1: is Margaret Killjoy, host of Cool, host of cpw DCS
Speaker 1: Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff Cool Medio podcast that
Speaker 1: is launching its first episode on May second, and episodes
Speaker 1: are every Monday and Wednesday. I did it? Okay? Who?
Speaker 1: That's true? All the things are true, except the cosmos
Speaker 1: part that the cosmists I don't know. Maybe maybe maybe
Speaker 1: they'll still pull it off as as if yet, so
Speaker 1: we're gonna go back a little bit. Um. We ended
Speaker 1: last episode with everyone sort of dead. Um. But the
Speaker 1: reason that also didn't wipe out the the anarchist movement
Speaker 1: was that there's that does another sort of wing of it,
Speaker 1: and the other wing of it is in in nineteen eighteen,
Speaker 1: labor movement in Japan re emerges, and it re emerges
Speaker 1: because there's the war, like Japan fights to over one,
Speaker 1: and there's just like mass inflation and deprivation, and so
Speaker 1: even though striking is like unbelievably illegal, people do it
Speaker 1: anyways because the underdative is just starving to death. And
Speaker 1: so there's this reformist trade union that eventually becomes Japanese
Speaker 1: Confederation of Labor that swells and numbers to about thirty
Speaker 1: thousand people, and actually much like thirty thousand people is
Speaker 1: like it doesn't sound like that big for a union.
Speaker 1: I think this is the biggest any union is going
Speaker 1: to get in this period. I think this might get
Speaker 1: slightly bigger than that, but like, yeah, most of the
Speaker 1: unions don't crack twenty k because the size of the
Speaker 1: Japanese industrial working class isn't that big, and also the
Speaker 1: amount of oppression is unbelievable. But you know, having having
Speaker 1: thirty people in your union means that your union is
Speaker 1: now the site of Japanese intra left conflict, which is wonderful.
Speaker 1: People there is actually like people up, Yeah, it's great.
Speaker 1: There's like, you know, there's a period where everyone kind
Speaker 1: of gets along, like like all of there was like
Speaker 1: everyone of the Japanese Left knows each other, like all
Speaker 1: they're all dating each other, like if this is true,
Speaker 1: Like you know, we've been talking about all the interest
Speaker 1: dating each other, but the Antics and the Communists are
Speaker 1: all dating each other, like the Reformists are also dating
Speaker 1: each other. Like they're all sort of like everyone knows
Speaker 1: each other, and for like a bit they're sort of
Speaker 1: able to get along all right. But with with with
Speaker 1: the the Japanese Confederation of Labor. This last for like
Speaker 1: one year, and the anarchists and the Bolsheviks has split
Speaker 1: over the question of the USSR. After the Anarchists published
Speaker 1: like Emma Goldman writing about how it's bad actually, and
Speaker 1: suddenly these two factions are like, yeah, these actutions are
Speaker 1: like fighting tooth and nail for control of like the
Speaker 1: entire left, because like these these groups are like the anarchists,
Speaker 1: the communists are in every social movement, like they're they're
Speaker 1: in there in labor, they're in the feminist movements, they're
Speaker 1: in this movement. They're like we haven't really talked about,
Speaker 1: but it is going on the background of all of this,
Speaker 1: which is the burak Kuman liberation movement on the burk
Speaker 1: Kuman or this like this like hereditary class. I'm pronouncing
Speaker 1: that extremely badly and I apologize um, but the hereditary
Speaker 1: class and like the old fuel system, which is like
Speaker 1: technically abolished in the Lady two hundreds, but like discrimination
Speaker 1: against them continues. It's it's very similar to like like
Speaker 1: the untouchable like touchables in India. And so they have
Speaker 1: this sort of movements and the anarchists back it, and
Speaker 1: the communists like waffle on it because the Bolsheviks it
Speaker 1: tastes like a while before they're like no, no, no,
Speaker 1: We're we're fully backing this now. And so yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean that gets wrapped up in this this giant battle
Speaker 1: for the control of the left, and the battle for
Speaker 1: the control of the left leads to like one of
Speaker 1: history's most common alliances, which is Bolsheviks allying with reformists
Speaker 1: who like also favor like centralized control to fight the
Speaker 1: anarchists who don't want centralized control. Yeah, there there are
Speaker 1: many new things, yea, in the labor movement. This this
Speaker 1: plays out in this battle over like where power is
Speaker 1: supposed to be in a union confederation. So you know,
Speaker 1: the question basically is it supposed to be in the
Speaker 1: federation bureaucracy like the people are like the sort of
Speaker 1: high level of the bureacracy itself, or is it supposed
Speaker 1: to be in the unions who are like the part
Speaker 1: of this federation. And and this has real consequences, you know,
Speaker 1: like it a lot of sort of centralized union federations,
Speaker 1: like the central union bureacracy that the people who decide
Speaker 1: if you can strike or not mhm. And you know,
Speaker 1: this is extremely useful to both reformings bureaucrats who want
Speaker 1: to make sure nobody goes on strike because have their
Speaker 1: deal with the capitalists and they don't want to refolution happen.
Speaker 1: And it's also very useful for the Bolsheviks who want
Speaker 1: to make sure they can purge anyone who they don't
Speaker 1: like and also want to make sure. The Union movement
Speaker 1: is just like an extension of their politics. And so
Speaker 1: there's this huge battle and it ends with basically like
Speaker 1: both the Bolsheviks and the reformists pull out of the Union. Whoa,
Speaker 1: so the anarchists win. Oh yes, sort of, well they victory.
Speaker 1: There's nothing. Yeah, well it's not. There's nothing. So like
Speaker 1: twenty thou members go with the reformists, like twelve thousand
Speaker 1: go with the Bolsheviks, about eight thousand go with the anarchists.
Speaker 1: So it's not the best, but they rebuild and and
Speaker 1: into this phrase steps arguably Japan's greatest anarchist theorists of
Speaker 1: this period, Hottest Shoes. Oh and this guy is a character,
Speaker 1: like he's he's he's barely known in Japan. I mean
Speaker 1: there was a sort of like renaissance in how to
Speaker 1: shoeso scholarship when this one guy named John Krupp wrote
Speaker 1: this book called Hottes SHOESO How does Shoes? In Pure
Speaker 1: Anarchism and into Wards Japan, which is a mouthful of
Speaker 1: a title, But I'm just gonna keep plugging this because
Speaker 1: like this is the book that made me an anarchist.
Speaker 1: Like this is like I checked this book out from
Speaker 1: my library and I read it and I was like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, I'm an anarchist now. So yeah, he
Speaker 1: has he has like A because she has a wild story.
Speaker 1: Um he's born in He's born in Japan in December
Speaker 1: six and he sort of like bounces around like different
Speaker 1: manual labor jobs in Tokyo, and like at one point
Speaker 1: he wants to be like A. He tries to be
Speaker 1: like I don't know if it's long trou he wants
Speaker 1: to be like a sailor. So he gets on a
Speaker 1: boat and he's going to be a sailor and then
Speaker 1: he after like one sale ride to Taiwan, he immediately
Speaker 1: decides he doesn't want to be a sailor anymore. So
Speaker 1: he just gets off the boat and leaves and doesn't
Speaker 1: come back. I feel like that's what I would do
Speaker 1: if I decided, Oh yeah, like that job, especially like
Speaker 1: the nineteen like twenties, that jobs, he's awful. Yeah, You're like,
Speaker 1: I want adventure, and then you're like, oh, adventure means
Speaker 1: bad things happen. It's like maybe I I I guess
Speaker 1: I understand why all these people are anarchists, because like
Speaker 1: that is a terrible job. But yeah, so she's so
Speaker 1: winds up sort of just like wandering around Taiwan. And
Speaker 1: one of the things that happens when he's wanting aroun Taiwan,
Speaker 1: by the way, is a Japanese colony at this point,
Speaker 1: um okay. And while he's wandering around Taiwan, he becomes
Speaker 1: a Christian and he like goes to school, it's like
Speaker 1: a theologian, but he drops out, but then he somehow
Speaker 1: still becomes a pastor because I don't know, this guy's
Speaker 1: career is wild. No, she's always not like a noble pastor.
Speaker 1: He rapidly starts pissing off like everyone around him because
Speaker 1: he's like every All of his sermons are just him
Speaker 1: and taggetizing rich people and preaching this like very very
Speaker 1: left we rided in the Gospel. Read the Bible. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's incredible that this is a great quote from Howdaeschizo
Speaker 1: and pierre anarchists into war Japan about this time as
Speaker 1: a pastor from like someone who was there, it was
Speaker 1: Pastor Howes. His sermons were superbs, so much so that
Speaker 1: I thought it was a shame that more people we're
Speaker 1: not there to hear them. It was like the Bible
Speaker 1: talking in the spirit of pure socialism. And one of
Speaker 1: my friends admired pastor hates so much to the assid
Speaker 1: to celebrate his marriage. Yeah, and you know this like
Speaker 1: this does not go around. Yeah yeah, he say, Well,
Speaker 1: it's funny because he starts like as a Christian, right,
Speaker 1: but like he just like progressively keeps getting more and
Speaker 1: more left wing and keeps realizing that like okay, so
Speaker 1: there's the Kingdom of God in heaven, right, but like
Speaker 1: what if we did that here? And like as he's
Speaker 1: getting like as he's pissing off more of the church,
Speaker 1: um and as like they're they're they're in fighting, gets bigger,
Speaker 1: he's becoming just more and more of an anarchist. And
Speaker 1: by the end he just like gets up, he gets
Speaker 1: booted out by his church and he's just like okay,
Speaker 1: I'm an anarchist propagandist now, and soo he just like
Speaker 1: leaves and he's like, well, I'm anarchist now. Um and
Speaker 1: Shizo becomes what's known as a pure anarchist. And this
Speaker 1: is something that is like entirely unique to Japan that
Speaker 1: like there there's nothing there's this doesn't exist anywhere else, um,
Speaker 1: and this is different than like like basically every other anarchist,
Speaker 1: theorist and movement in Japan util this point has been
Speaker 1: like something you can find parallels with other anarchist movements
Speaker 1: around the globe, Like there are nihilists and lots of
Speaker 1: countries as egoists everywhere, like their cynicalists literally in every
Speaker 1: country has ever existed, and they mostly sort of believe
Speaker 1: the same things. Um, you know, you get some like
Speaker 1: like oh us Kai is like combination of egoism and
Speaker 1: syndicalism is like it's cool, but like just I like
Speaker 1: that idea. Yeah, yeah, it's a good idea, but it's
Speaker 1: also not like it's like he's not's not like he's
Speaker 1: not the first person to ever do this right, And
Speaker 1: like the Japanese synicalist movement is built in the mold
Speaker 1: of like the French syndicalists in the CGT, which is
Speaker 1: this big union. Uh actually they're still around today there
Speaker 1: so in like the very early eighteen hundreds they were there,
Speaker 1: they were sort of Anarcoisy Nicolas Union and like like
Speaker 1: you know six they have this famous charter about like anarchists,
Speaker 1: but then they go reformist and they like they vote
Speaker 1: for World War were one and now they're famous for
Speaker 1: there's been like twelve things that probably could have been
Speaker 1: a revolution in France if the CGT had ever a
Speaker 1: single time went to the barricades. And they never do.
Speaker 1: Wh's never ever, that's like their whole thing, like like
Speaker 1: they set out by sixty eight, like that's the rest
Speaker 1: of Yeah, this is the union. Yeah yeah, and they
Speaker 1: set out by sixty eight. It's like it's incredible, but
Speaker 1: you know it's the But you know, in like ninety
Speaker 1: know six, right, the Japanese are looking at like cynical,
Speaker 1: looking at this like oh my god, this just this
Speaker 1: union has like millions of people in it, like it's enormous.
Speaker 1: It's a cynicals union. Yeah yeah, And like you know
Speaker 1: they they the Jeman's anarchists do is sort of their
Speaker 1: standard cynicalist things like that they're building up democratic unions.
Speaker 1: They're like working cords in general strike the season means
Speaker 1: their production. They're like fighting for a society or production
Speaker 1: is run by workers themselves. Blah blah blah blah, I
Speaker 1: shouldn't blah blah blah blah. That's actually it's it's cool,
Speaker 1: it's fine, but pure anarchism is not that I'm dying
Speaker 1: to know what pure anarchism is. This new anarchism just dropped.
Speaker 1: I'm excited. It's it's kind of a it's it's a
Speaker 1: version of whocomunism. But like what if you like really
Speaker 1: really rigorously applied in arco communism and and this is
Speaker 1: this is the thing. It doesn't exist anywhere else because everywhere,
Speaker 1: like in the West and in Latin America, like syndicalism
Speaker 1: and anarchist and anarcho communism just like fuse to the
Speaker 1: point where like they're not really they're like but there's
Speaker 1: not really they're not really separate tendency, like nobody's written
Speaker 1: in an arco communist theory, and like a hundred years
Speaker 1: like like they started, you know, they've basically ceased to
Speaker 1: be separate tendencies. But in Japan, the cyndicalists of the
Speaker 1: and comps like fighting it out to the death. And
Speaker 1: if this this produces pure anarchism and it rules can
Speaker 1: talk about what it is because it's both wonderful and
Speaker 1: incredibly silly at the same time. So okay, so to
Speaker 1: understand what they're arguing about, because this is this is
Speaker 1: this this causes like a huge fracture in the annex movements. Um,
Speaker 1: I think we need to sort of like go into
Speaker 1: like the vulgar bark disconception of class structure that's kind
Speaker 1: of shared by the syndicalists. Okay, So okay, okay, so
Speaker 1: you're you're okay. The important thing about this is that,
Speaker 1: like this doesn't work at Japan, like the the vulgar
Speaker 1: theory of like Marcus class structure, right, is that like, okay,
Speaker 1: so you're supposed to have the great industrial proletariat, Like
Speaker 1: it's that's supposed to become a majority of the population.
Speaker 1: It's supposed to be unified and organized by like the
Speaker 1: discipline of the factory system, and the entire world is
Speaker 1: supposed to reduce to two classes like the boors, the borgewisi,
Speaker 1: and the proletariat, like one class of people who have
Speaker 1: nothing to sell but their labor. One class of people
Speaker 1: who exist purely too like extract wealth from people because
Speaker 1: like you, who you entirely supportless on my owning things.
Speaker 1: And you know, eventually these are supposed to, like if
Speaker 1: you if you read your communist manifesto, Eventually these two
Speaker 1: classes are supposed to like meet themselves in like a
Speaker 1: final conflict or the proletariat defeats it's called yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: and you know, the propitiy defeats them, and then they
Speaker 1: abolished the conditions of their own existence as a class
Speaker 1: and you get stateless class list butey in this society,
Speaker 1: it's like a free association of workers. And this is
Speaker 1: what communism is. And famously this never happened. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: about what about the immortal science. Yeah, you know the well,
Speaker 1: the w the wortal science. Yeah, this, this is the
Speaker 1: This is the problem with the immortal science is that one,
Speaker 1: instead of unifying the industrial politariat, capitalism like divides it
Speaker 1: and just sort of like like literally spatially like kicks
Speaker 1: them into suburbs. And you can get this sort of
Speaker 1: like the system where instead of like unifying everyone into
Speaker 1: one class, everyone is now just like completely alienated, like
Speaker 1: boomer living in a suburb, even if it's still work
Speaker 1: in a factory. And the other problem is that there's
Speaker 1: never just two classes. And this is the problem that like, yeah,
Speaker 1: all the other ones are our enemies. Yeah, this worried too,
Speaker 1: you know, but this is a real problem, right because
Speaker 1: like the Marxist running to this in Russia where it's
Speaker 1: like okay, so we we did our thing, we did
Speaker 1: our urban poultry revolution. But like there's all these peasants
Speaker 1: and they don't like us because we keep taking their
Speaker 1: granted gunpoint and but but you know that you have,
Speaker 1: you have this one problem and popular, yeah, it goes great,
Speaker 1: right if not nothing bad ever happens, they don't famously
Speaker 1: have to kill enormous members of these people. But then
Speaker 1: like you know, there's something weird happens, which is in China,
Speaker 1: u Stalin managed to get like the entire or like
Speaker 1: the entire urban Chinese working class like builitic working class killed,
Speaker 1: and so Mao has to like make a revolution with peasants,
Speaker 1: and so you know, peasants become the sort of like
Speaker 1: you know, this this sort of like this, this is
Speaker 1: what the actual refolution stutuct of communism wants up being,
Speaker 1: like from like China, Columbia. It's these peasants. But like
Speaker 1: you know, okay, so your your theory of the industrial
Speaker 1: politariats already down the toilet. And this is what Shuzo
Speaker 1: is reacting to. Like he looks at Japanese society and
Speaker 1: there's like five people who you wage labor. Mostly there's
Speaker 1: this enormous like fourteen million people who are tenant farmers
Speaker 1: who are like trying to support their families and these
Speaker 1: like tiny plots of rented land. But you know, and
Speaker 1: like in center Marxis theories, like well, okay, these people
Speaker 1: will inevitably be absorbed into capitalism, right, but they will
Speaker 1: be driven by competition or whatever to the market. But
Speaker 1: like they're not, it's not happening. They're just they're sitting
Speaker 1: there and they're still just really poor in paying their landlords.
Speaker 1: And yeah, yeah, well you just gotta wait for all
Speaker 1: of Japan to be like annihilated. Yeah yeah, yeah, it's
Speaker 1: it's it's it's going great. But and it's also like
Speaker 1: there's all these other like classes to you, Like there's
Speaker 1: there's these classes of like there's just like petty traders
Speaker 1: for example, or like the like low level like really
Speaker 1: low level government officials like like you know, you're like
Speaker 1: like a clerk for example, who just don't fit into
Speaker 1: this sort of class scheme at all, Like if it
Speaker 1: marks some things about like like small like I don't know,
Speaker 1: people who like cut wood and then go into a
Speaker 1: town and sell it, like they're like, well, there's these
Speaker 1: people are petit bourgeois like their reactionaries blah blah, And
Speaker 1: there's this whole history of like anarchists organizing people like
Speaker 1: this who marks just sort of like steer At, Like
Speaker 1: Bolivia has this where like anarchists organized these like these
Speaker 1: indigenous like like they're not really these indigenous artisans whose
Speaker 1: things like they go to market and they saw their craft.
Speaker 1: And the Marxists were just like a, why do we
Speaker 1: care about the people? Like why yeah, workers, And it
Speaker 1: always seems like the better I don't know, whenever I
Speaker 1: was presented with the basic analysis of like, okay, we've
Speaker 1: got the proletariat who have terrible lives and factories, and
Speaker 1: then you have the lump and proletariat who refuse that
Speaker 1: kind of work and are like beggars and thieves and
Speaker 1: people doing work outside of the traditional system or whatever.
Speaker 1: And then you have the petty bourgeoisie who are like
Speaker 1: you know, owned stores or artisans or whatever. And then
Speaker 1: you have the bourgeoisie over it. And it is always
Speaker 1: funny to me because I look at I'm like, well, clearly,
Speaker 1: the only ones that would be worth being would be
Speaker 1: lumping proletariat or pett like they're the only ones to
Speaker 1: get to have any fun Like, yeah, you know, and
Speaker 1: I think like like that this is a problem that
Speaker 1: that chooso sees. And I'm gonna read part of um
Speaker 1: Krupt's book about his solution to this because I think
Speaker 1: it's really interesting. Um. Given the failure of the available
Speaker 1: methods of class analysis to capture the subtleties of Japan's
Speaker 1: social structure, how To developed the notion of the propertyless
Speaker 1: masses as an alternative concept of the proletariat. That the
Speaker 1: propertyless masses was a wide ranching term which encompassed tenant farmers,
Speaker 1: small traders, petty officials, artisans, and even wage laborers when
Speaker 1: they are prepared to forsake their preoccupation with narrowly defending
Speaker 1: advantages that accompanied their urban lifestyle and we're ready to
Speaker 1: throw in their lot with the other oppressed strata. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that makes sense. That's just you know, it's the like
Speaker 1: or just the haves and have nots. It's like, okay,
Speaker 1: well it's it's kind of but but there's there's a
Speaker 1: crucial difference here, which is that like, okay, so the
Speaker 1: other like the really big thing about the pure anarchist
Speaker 1: that they don't believe in class struggle, Okay, and The
Speaker 1: reason why they don't believe in class struggle is that
Speaker 1: they think that, Okay, so they look at the history
Speaker 1: of the union movement, right, and it's like, okay, so
Speaker 1: has the union movement ended capitalism? It's like no, So
Speaker 1: like okay, what what does it actually do? And the
Speaker 1: answer is it gets people slightly more money under capitalism,
Speaker 1: which is nice too, Yeah, which which is nice. But
Speaker 1: it's also like choose a like adopted tub that there's
Speaker 1: no other Japanese anarchists who who has this beta for
Speaker 1: It's like he he compares it to like people fighting
Speaker 1: inside of like a bandit king, where it's like, okay,
Speaker 1: so if you have you have like fight, like the
Speaker 1: bosses of the bandit gang are obviously exploiting like the
Speaker 1: lower level people in the bandit gang. But you know,
Speaker 1: I even even if even if the lower level people
Speaker 1: in this bandit gang like take over, they're not actually
Speaker 1: gonna stop being a bandit gang, right, It's just that
Speaker 1: the the distribution of where the bandit gang wealth is
Speaker 1: going changes. And this is a big thing for for
Speaker 1: for the puranicist because the pior anarchists are you know,
Speaker 1: they're they're looking at the industrial working classes like this
Speaker 1: is tiny and they're they're all exploiting in the countryside
Speaker 1: m hm. And so because of that, like they they
Speaker 1: look at this, they look at the the union movement,
Speaker 1: and they look at it at like class struggle, like
Speaker 1: classical TM like class struggle, and they're like, well, this
Speaker 1: doesn't cause a revolution. All this does is just like
Speaker 1: sort of reorients like who's in power inside of Uh
Speaker 1: that's what the Bolsheviks did, right, Yeah, But but it's
Speaker 1: it's not just what the bulls so they paily this
Speaker 1: is the Bolsheviks. But like it's also like there's analysis
Speaker 1: of what a union is is that you're like class
Speaker 1: struggles just defending your position under capitalism, but you're also
Speaker 1: fighting very specifically narrowly for your class. Right, So if
Speaker 1: you're like a factory worker, right, you're fighting for you
Speaker 1: and the other factory workers. You're not fighting for like
Speaker 1: I don't know, like a tenant farmer. You're not you know,
Speaker 1: even fighting from like for like the guy down the
Speaker 1: tree to Bate's bread. It's like you're you know, the
Speaker 1: these these things that are like that are but they
Speaker 1: look like instruments of class struggles, like your workers council,
Speaker 1: your unions, your Soviets, Like they don't actually get rid
Speaker 1: of class. It's just now another class has power, and
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter if it's sort of like this is
Speaker 1: what they're arguing, is like, it doesn't matter if it's
Speaker 1: like democratic, It doesn't matter if it's like you know,
Speaker 1: like there there there's no difference in how the actual
Speaker 1: eventually the class and amics will play out. It doesn't
Speaker 1: matter if it's like you know, like Lenin making like
Speaker 1: Stalin making himself dictator, or you have a bunch of
Speaker 1: democratic like Soviets, because they're both so instruments class power.
Speaker 1: They're both sort of just going to reproduce this, this
Speaker 1: whole system. And yeah, and so they have this thing
Speaker 1: that they counterposed, which is like class struggle is just
Speaker 1: about what stuff is happening inside the system. But that's
Speaker 1: different revolution, which is like destroying this the system entirely.
Speaker 1: And this is where you get into his stuff about
Speaker 1: the division of labor, which is I think it's really
Speaker 1: interesting because it I think this this sphere of pure
Speaker 1: anarchism got to a bunch of critiques of stuff that
Speaker 1: people have gotten to now, but they got to it
Speaker 1: in where Okay, so she's always like one of his
Speaker 1: big things is that like the division of labor is
Speaker 1: inherently exploitative because it like it destroys sort of rural
Speaker 1: community living and it replaces it with the centralization of
Speaker 1: expertise and the central relation of power. And he also
Speaker 1: thinks that like science is like a capitalist engine that's
Speaker 1: used to like create the division of labor, and then
Speaker 1: it's used to create like mechanization, and it's used to
Speaker 1: create like labor exploitation. Yeah, that's that sounds like modern.
Speaker 1: A lot of like stuff that I read more modern. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: except this is like they're doing this in like like
Speaker 1: nineteen twenties seven. Ye else is a capitalist engine of
Speaker 1: exploitation products and surfaces the podcast industrial complex. It's true,
Speaker 1: and we're back with more things that are exploitative and
Speaker 1: the theoretically theoretically yes, yes, but we we we we
Speaker 1: have we have to get through. We have to get
Speaker 1: through the last exploitative thing, which is the thing. I
Speaker 1: talked a bit about this earlier, but like the Puranicists
Speaker 1: argued that like cities inherently are this concentration of wealthy
Speaker 1: resources and power, and so like farmers and workers need
Speaker 1: to work together to destroy all forms of power, including cities.
Speaker 1: And this sounds a lot like primitive, is yeah, it does,
Speaker 1: although you know they wouldn't necessarily be like repping the farmers.
Speaker 1: And I think I think primitives might be the wrong term.
Speaker 1: But it's definitely a lot of like the anti tech stuff.
Speaker 1: And well it's it's interesting, okay, So they have they
Speaker 1: have like they threat this needle where so like there
Speaker 1: are people in this period who want to just go
Speaker 1: back to pure rural agrarianism and don't want their to technology,
Speaker 1: and the pure anarchists are like, no, we still want technology,
Speaker 1: but we don't want the division of labor. So they're like,
Speaker 1: we like our raping machines so we don't have to
Speaker 1: work as much when we're farming. We just don't want
Speaker 1: everyone to live in apartments. Yeah, I mean even the
Speaker 1: reaping machine. I don't know, Like it's kind of unclear
Speaker 1: to me how this is exactually supposed to work, because like,
Speaker 1: well we'll get into this. I guess we can just
Speaker 1: get into this now, which is it? Like, Okay, so
Speaker 1: they really don't like the division of labor because they
Speaker 1: think the division of labor like well, Okay, they have,
Speaker 1: they have like there's like three critiques of but one
Speaker 1: is that like when you have a division of labor,
Speaker 1: labor becomes like mechanized industrialized. And when that happens, um
Speaker 1: labor because like it gets reduced to just like a
Speaker 1: cog you put in a machine m hm. And they
Speaker 1: see this is like this is like an inherent like
Speaker 1: thing that happens with labor specializations. You just end up
Speaker 1: like being a person who makes more repetitive moving a
Speaker 1: factory over and over again, like you're not free because
Speaker 1: of this UM. And they also argue that like specialization
Speaker 1: means that people only care about like labor that they
Speaker 1: do and so this gives you like an identity that
Speaker 1: that divides workers from one sector. Like say if you're
Speaker 1: if you're you know, you're like a coal miner, right,
Speaker 1: your daily experience is so utterly different than a baker.
Speaker 1: And it's not just like your experience, it's like it's
Speaker 1: like your knowledge is different. The other person is not gonna,
Speaker 1: like the baker is not gonna understand what you're doing. Um.
Speaker 1: And you keep wanting to argue against this political position
Speaker 1: that no, no, that misunderstands the nature of specialization at all,
Speaker 1: you know. But then I'm like, all right, I can't
Speaker 1: go back and convince these people. Yeah, I think, like
Speaker 1: I think, okay, this is I'm gonna I'm gonna, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna put on my my my marks, my like weird
Speaker 1: left calm mars, noise and critique not a platform, which
Speaker 1: is not they they actually wanted as a platform, but like,
Speaker 1: I think it would have been a great critique and
Speaker 1: not a very good platform. Yeah, they're the platform. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I think I think there's there's the interesting
Speaker 1: elements of it. Like they have this argument that like, okay,
Speaker 1: so if if you have your like your your syndicalists
Speaker 1: like society right where Okay, so you have a bunch
Speaker 1: of like, you have a bunch of like coal miners,
Speaker 1: you have a bunch of people who like make pots
Speaker 1: and pans. But you need to coordinate your labor because
Speaker 1: because you you have you have like specialization, you have
Speaker 1: branches of labor. And their argument is that, okay, so well,
Speaker 1: the cynicales why you do this. You have coordinating committees,
Speaker 1: right you You like, elect a person you like, send
Speaker 1: them to a coordinating council, and the coordinating council like
Speaker 1: coordinates stuff, and she was just like, well, that's just
Speaker 1: gonna choose those like things like that's just gonna turn
Speaker 1: into a state. Like you're just going to create a
Speaker 1: permanent class, even even if ap rotate people. You're you're
Speaker 1: you're creating an administrative body that's going to like rebuild
Speaker 1: the state again. And yeah, like okay, like I'm makin
Speaker 1: this like shrugging gesture that the audience cans like yeah,
Speaker 1: I got you know, Yeah, I I don't. Okay, So,
Speaker 1: like I don't think he's right about like most of this,
Speaker 1: Like I think he's sort of wrong about like almost
Speaker 1: all of it. The thing, the thing that stuck with
Speaker 1: me phil when I read this is like his specific
Speaker 1: critique of syndicalism, which is that it maintains like the
Speaker 1: structure of the old world. Because if you're a syndicalist
Speaker 1: and your your society is based on unions running their workplaces,
Speaker 1: then you've maintained the division of labor, but you've also
Speaker 1: maintained like the basic like geographic, physical, technological, and organizational
Speaker 1: structure of capitalism, like all of the like all of
Speaker 1: that stuff is still in the same place, and you're
Speaker 1: still sort of like going there to do your job,
Speaker 1: and I think there is an interesting sort of like
Speaker 1: like I think there was a genuinely interesting critique there
Speaker 1: of yeah, like how how do you make sure that
Speaker 1: you aren't just sort of reproducing that stuff? And like
Speaker 1: like I mean, I don't know, like the critique of
Speaker 1: why would you want to build a society like structured
Speaker 1: along the lines of production? Like why why do you
Speaker 1: want to structure your society around work? Like that's awful.
Speaker 1: I I like that about the pure anarchists, where they
Speaker 1: were kind of like let's let's let's throw away the
Speaker 1: Marxist ship for a minute and like just actually like
Speaker 1: figure out what we want, and like I I like
Speaker 1: that about it, But I I dislike the idea of like,
Speaker 1: well it's it's it would be my problem with syndicalism,
Speaker 1: and most of the syndicalists I met believe in syndicalism
Speaker 1: as a method and not an end result. Right, Um,
Speaker 1: it's a way of building workers power, not a way
Speaker 1: to create a society. But but if syndicalists were like
Speaker 1: everyone must wake up and go to their work job
Speaker 1: and then make eight widgets, but it's collectively determined which
Speaker 1: widgets that you make right like fun that, but also
Speaker 1: if it was like everyone goes and wakes up and
Speaker 1: goes to their collective farm and maybe we use raping
Speaker 1: machines and maybe we don't. And it's just like I
Speaker 1: get so unexcited by It's like one of the reasons
Speaker 1: that like a lot of the like nitpicky branches of
Speaker 1: anarchism don't they interest me, but I don't like subscribe
Speaker 1: to any of them is because I'm like, well, what
Speaker 1: if some people like this ship and some people like
Speaker 1: this ship like and you know, maybe they're could be
Speaker 1: fucking different. Imagine that we could have a plurality of
Speaker 1: economic models systems. But you know whatever, um I'm now
Speaker 1: arguing with that people who I probably would interesting like, well,
Speaker 1: I don't know, because these guys like they they have
Speaker 1: like the maoist thing going on where like they will
Speaker 1: like attack other leftist groups who like don't like follow
Speaker 1: their line. And so this is where this whole thing
Speaker 1: is wild, because it was one of the everything is
Speaker 1: like the the pure anarchists are like completely convinced that
Speaker 1: syndicalism is like a sort of like well they think
Speaker 1: it's it's just like it's not an anarchist thing. It's
Speaker 1: just like a tendency to labor movement. And they also
Speaker 1: think that like it's basically like a bastardised form of
Speaker 1: Marxism because they're not like entirely wrong about either of
Speaker 1: those things. But yeah, except in a different places and times. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but it's like the thing, the thing that they have
Speaker 1: about it, like because they're they're completely convinced that syndicalism
Speaker 1: will inevitably just like turn into like Soviet communism. It's
Speaker 1: like it's incredibly silly. Um, but like like this, you know,
Speaker 1: I like, on the one hand, like that they are
Speaker 1: kind of inventing a lot of the sort of like
Speaker 1: like they're they're inventing a lot of the sort of
Speaker 1: like some okay, some bad arguments about like specialization and
Speaker 1: stuff like like some anti work stuff too that like
Speaker 1: is going to be around later. They're also inventing a
Speaker 1: lot of stuff that's like and you know, initially this
Speaker 1: kind of like new theory doesn't have this doesn't have
Speaker 1: an enormous effect. Um. In six, the Federation of Black
Speaker 1: Youth or COCODA and has its first public meeting and
Speaker 1: they have a bunch of cool slogans, the slogans rolled
Speaker 1: they have. The emancipation of workers must be carried out
Speaker 1: by the workers themselves. We insist on libertarian federation, destroy
Speaker 1: the political movement, get rid of, reject the Poltarian party,
Speaker 1: get rid of professional activists with all oppressive laws and ordinances.
Speaker 1: That is an entirely based platform. Yeah, sweet, it's it's good. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And you know there were things despite the fact that
Speaker 1: it's called the Federation of Black Youth, this is like
Speaker 1: not a youth I mean, I mean there's like youth
Speaker 1: in it, but like it's it's this thing's backed by
Speaker 1: like remember those those printers unions that I was talking
Speaker 1: about last episode that as like, hi, you have like
Speaker 1: set up. So they're all heavily involved in this um
Speaker 1: and they do a bunch of cool labor stuff, Like
Speaker 1: they they get involved in like, uh, there's a bunch
Speaker 1: of tram worker strikes, they get involved in the there
Speaker 1: in this, uh, the Japanese Musical instrument company strike, which
Speaker 1: is like there's like over a thousand people on strike
Speaker 1: for like over a hundred days, and there's there's this
Speaker 1: great split where like so the leadership of the union
Speaker 1: is Bolshevik, but like a bunch of the like a
Speaker 1: bunch of the ordinary people in the union are anarchists,
Speaker 1: and so you have the there's there's like there's this
Speaker 1: fun tension going around there. They're they're they're they're doing
Speaker 1: the stuff. Um and then the anarchists form um Zengoku Gaterrand,
Speaker 1: which is the All Japanese Libertarian Federation of Labor Unions,
Speaker 1: which is a it's a federation of twenty unions. These
Speaker 1: are the pure anarchists that you're talking about that are
Speaker 1: doing all this. So sorry, at this point, they haven't
Speaker 1: split yet, okay, because it was like this sounds like
Speaker 1: all the stuff that they said that they don't want
Speaker 1: to do. Yeah, well, this is like the other the
Speaker 1: other wild thing about this is that like, okay, so
Speaker 1: the entirety of like of like pyrannicist theory, right, is
Speaker 1: about how like unions don't do revolutions and that class struggle,
Speaker 1: but like they still do strikes, like they still do
Speaker 1: all the normal stuff. It's kind of wild, Okay, I
Speaker 1: kind of like that, yeah, you know, and like and
Speaker 1: and this that that's sort of how they're able to
Speaker 1: get along in this early period and these unions like okay,
Speaker 1: so there's like a lot of printers unions in this
Speaker 1: because the prints unions are just really anarchists. But there's
Speaker 1: there's like there's a tenant farmers union. There's a loutch
Speaker 1: of like rubber unions, and it grows to like fifteen
Speaker 1: workers almost immediately, and yeah, they're they're doing a lot
Speaker 1: of cool stuff, like they have they have these huge
Speaker 1: demonstrations in support Saco and Vinzetti, uh to the US
Speaker 1: is killing for being anarchists, and also Italians just like yeah,
Speaker 1: the one time anti Italian racism was real and a
Speaker 1: hundred years ago ship was real different than it is
Speaker 1: now and it doesn't yeah yeah, yeah yeah. And for
Speaker 1: for for one year, this like this works great, you know,
Speaker 1: like the yeah that the unions up to like I
Speaker 1: think they get up to like thousand members, like it
Speaker 1: gets pretty big. But then intense conflict between the syndicalists
Speaker 1: and the anarchac and the pure anarchists breakout. And this
Speaker 1: gets so bad so fast that like the International working
Speaker 1: Man's Association, which is the like like the giant international
Speaker 1: like Federation of Cynicalist Movements like sends them a letter
Speaker 1: that are like, hey, cynicalist and Archer communists get along
Speaker 1: every literally everywhere else on earth. Their chilk. You guys
Speaker 1: like chill and the anarcha communists in Cocaduran. Uh, their
Speaker 1: response is, h we are fighting quote the betrayers, opportunists
Speaker 1: and union imperialists in Zengoku Juran's ranks can't have nice things.
Speaker 1: You know, it's great, it gets better, it gets better.
Speaker 1: So they lose. Yeah, okay, look in the conference so
Speaker 1: uh Enoka Juran which is the Union federation, like they
Speaker 1: have they have a conference, they have the yearly conference,
Speaker 1: and there's just like giant battle over like what the
Speaker 1: organizations platform is going to be a thing that doesn't
Speaker 1: matter at all, except it's a proxy ideological fight. And uh,
Speaker 1: both sides to start screaming at each other. And I'm
Speaker 1: gonna read this description from Ardashizo and Pyannicism into War Japan.
Speaker 1: Cocona and members barricaded the barrack to the anarchy. The
Speaker 1: anarchist syndicolist jeering and cat calling them, and the proceedings
Speaker 1: degenerated to the level where it was almost impossible to
Speaker 1: hear the speeches. Eventually, the anarcho Synicholas decided they had
Speaker 1: had enough unflirling their black flags, they walked out of
Speaker 1: the hall to a chorus of taunts such as believers, blind,
Speaker 1: believers in Central authority, Bolsheviks, and betrayers, Oh my god,
Speaker 1: got over yourself. Oh my no, okay, to be fair
Speaker 1: to the pure anarchists, one of so, okay, a bunch
Speaker 1: of the cynicals yount start leaving and all one of
Speaker 1: them does actually join the Bolsheviks, but like all the
Speaker 1: other ones don't because they're not and you get this
Speaker 1: period there's like they have like the cynical list and
Speaker 1: the periodicis of dueling magazines. Uh, there's won't call black flag.
Speaker 1: There won't called black battle. And like so Cokerran, which
Speaker 1: is like the youth mid thing, like the cynicalas and
Speaker 1: the anarchists are still in it together, and they like
Speaker 1: they start just like fighting each other in the street
Speaker 1: when they run into each other, because the the this
Speaker 1: is more oppressing than everyone getting murdered after the earthquake,
Speaker 1: not the anarchist killing part. Yeah well, I mean yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's like it's incredible, you know, and like yeah,
Speaker 1: they what's interesting about this though, is that like the
Speaker 1: inarchal communists, like when the union splits, like almost all
Speaker 1: of the people stay with the communists, even though the
Speaker 1: inucer communist like explicitly saying we're not fighting for like
Speaker 1: wage increases, we're just fighting for revolution, and fine, I'm
Speaker 1: alright with that. Yeah. Well, but there's interesting stuff too worse,
Speaker 1: like like they're also so be be because they have
Speaker 1: this thing that's like, okay, so that the urban workers
Speaker 1: are like exploiting the well, okay, the line about it's
Speaker 1: complicated because it's like they think the urban workers are
Speaker 1: exploiting the countryside, but they also don't think that the
Speaker 1: solution to it is to just like turn it the
Speaker 1: other way around. They think that like the workers and
Speaker 1: the tenant farmers just worked together to like make the
Speaker 1: oppression go away, which is like a reasonable stance on it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but it means that, you know, they're interested in, like
Speaker 1: they're interested in the royal movement in a way that
Speaker 1: like the other Japanese lefe stupments aren't. But unfortunately, you know, Okay,
Speaker 1: there's a big debate as to whether this split like
Speaker 1: actually like like how big a role this split had
Speaker 1: in the collapse of anarchism, because like bye bye by,
Speaker 1: like by like nineteen thirty one, Like the fascists have
Speaker 1: just straight up taken over Manchuria. Like I think things
Speaker 1: have gotten so fascist that it's like it's unclear whether
Speaker 1: the split matter at all. Yeah, um yeah, but you know,
Speaker 1: they run into this problem where like like coke and
Speaker 1: like the state really hates them, and they are a
Speaker 1: bunch of them get arrested and that they you know,
Speaker 1: they respond to being arrested by like getting more militant.
Speaker 1: But then that just you know, that fuels the cycle
Speaker 1: of them getting arrested for and people just leave because
Speaker 1: they're like, well, okay, if I'm in this organization, like
Speaker 1: we're all just gonna like get shot. I mean that's
Speaker 1: the spiral. Yeah yeah, And you know it's his real problem,
Speaker 1: and like how does Chesu himself becomes just like incredibly
Speaker 1: depressed by the depression of the movement. But actually thirty
Speaker 1: two he just leaves like he's just out. He like
Speaker 1: renounces his anarchism. He abuses his wife because this is
Speaker 1: the story of a bunch of guys who sucked and
Speaker 1: then he drink Yeah, well I guess okay, he he
Speaker 1: did it to him. Yeah, he drinks it. The death
Speaker 1: got it done. On his own. Yeah, and you know,
Speaker 1: so he he dies and he like kills himself. Well
Speaker 1: I don't think he was doing a purpose, but he
Speaker 1: just dies from drinking too much. Four and that year,
Speaker 1: actually the anarcho communists narcos niklas like get back together.
Speaker 1: But it doesn't matter because by this point the fascist
Speaker 1: such a start different power. And yeah, the anarchists they do,
Speaker 1: they do one last world uprising and they fight a
Speaker 1: lot of cops and then all of them get arrested
Speaker 1: and anarchism just sort of dies until the end of
Speaker 1: World War two. And yeah, it's you know, okay, anarchism
Speaker 1: does really emerge after the war, but that's like that,
Speaker 1: that's a whole another story and entirely. Uh what I
Speaker 1: will say about is if you see those those construction
Speaker 1: hats from the protests, and you see one that's just
Speaker 1: all black, it doesn't have like a name written on it,
Speaker 1: like those are the anarchists whistle around um and you know,
Speaker 1: and anarchism of Japan like survives to this day. There
Speaker 1: there there's a book called the Manual for a Worldwide
Speaker 1: for a worldwide manuk revolts that like one day, I
Speaker 1: swear to God, I'm actually gonna read. But he is
Speaker 1: really big in China. Well, okay, I said really big
Speaker 1: in China. It's very influential in a very small subcultural
Speaker 1: anarchist scene in China. But I'm talking about them because
Speaker 1: it heavily influenced Like the people who wrote the Lying
Speaker 1: Flat manifesto, Um, we're like, we're very heavily influenced by
Speaker 1: this stuff. Oh okay, okay, So we would just episode
Speaker 1: about this a while back, but Lying Flat was this
Speaker 1: thing in China, I guess still going on, but like
Speaker 1: people were just like it's kind of it was kind
Speaker 1: of the version of anti work or most people like
Speaker 1: discovered Diogenes and or like what if I just didn't work?
Speaker 1: What if I just like lived on, like I worked
Speaker 1: like one day a month and then lived on like
Speaker 1: nothing so I didn't have to work, Or if I
Speaker 1: just quit. What if I just like stop doing all
Speaker 1: of this capitalist stuff, and what if I like stop
Speaker 1: having to deal with this patriarchy. What if I just like,
Speaker 1: you know, yeah, and it takes kind of like yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: they're they're great. They've loss of one Diogenes quotes, lots
Speaker 1: of like the the manifesto they released is like very
Speaker 1: it's like very anarchist and yeah, like that thing, and
Speaker 1: that was like like this, this is a big enough
Speaker 1: social movement that like like she jumping like mentioned it
Speaker 1: in a speech, okay, and so yeah, like Jeffrey's anachism.
Speaker 1: Still for them, they were had kind of concerned about
Speaker 1: like the same way a whole bunch of like oligarchs
Speaker 1: got concerned about the anti work stuff, and you saw
Speaker 1: like anti work hit pieces in the past like six months.
Speaker 1: It was it was like similar things, being like, well,
Speaker 1: this better not catch on more because that could really
Speaker 1: suck for us. That's as optimistic of a note as
Speaker 1: you could possibly get out of the story, which is
Speaker 1: that they're still around and they still influenced things that matter,
Speaker 1: so and hopefully they don't fight each other more than
Speaker 1: the state. Yeah, don't don't do that, Like I like, yes,
Speaker 1: I guess I will make my controversial Sometimes it's okay
Speaker 1: to stab an abuser under the throat stance. But also,
Speaker 1: don't urge all your syndicalists because on the accusation of
Speaker 1: Bullshevism hot take, don't purge all your classes. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: don't systematize violence like that. You know, you're like this
Speaker 1: individual guy just did this thing, and I'm real upset
Speaker 1: that he just did it to me, And there's like
Speaker 1: a throat. I'm not actually making an actual advocacy. I'm
Speaker 1: talking about how sometimes when that has happened in history,
Speaker 1: that seemed kind of cool. But yeah, not the not
Speaker 1: the systemic kick out all the people who have this
Speaker 1: minor I mean, it's really funny to me because I'm like,
Speaker 1: I'm like huge anti infighting. Then people are like, don't
Speaker 1: you spend all your time fighting tankies on the internet,
Speaker 1: And I'm like, they want to make a state that's different. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they believe that they everyone should be thrown in jail.
Speaker 1: That is a different thing. Um. Also, I don't like
Speaker 1: you've got to manage to polycuele drauma, Like you've gotta manage.
Speaker 1: It's got to be kept under control. You cannot allow
Speaker 1: your retired you seem to be factionalized over rival policels
Speaker 1: and anarchists control your polychuel drama quotations and partisis impossible. See,
Speaker 1: that's why you just need more. Maybe it's not true,
Speaker 1: it's like you need more multi generational anarchists because I
Speaker 1: think people in their forties give less of a ship
Speaker 1: about a lot of the drama. But then I'm like,
Speaker 1: maybe that's not true. Maybe people on their forties it
Speaker 1: give just as much of a ship about all the drama. Anarchism,
Speaker 1: wonderful idea Yep, yeah, it's good. And speaking of wonderful ideas,
Speaker 1: it is time for us to do the plugs. Um. First,
Speaker 1: I just want to plug Jimmie Loftus is new Cools
Speaker 1: one media podcast Goes Church by Jimmie Loftus. Uh. By
Speaker 1: the time this drops, episode one will be out in
Speaker 1: Episode two will be dropping the next Monday, I believe,
Speaker 1: yes exactly. And we also have another podcast on Cools
Speaker 1: and Media with one Margaret Killjoy called Cool People Who
Speaker 1: Did Cool Stuff? Margaret, you wanted to tell us about that? Oh?
Speaker 1: Should should I start working on that. I'll get it
Speaker 1: done by monday. Okay? Cool? Um, I have a new
Speaker 1: podcast called Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff, which is
Speaker 1: as about cool people who did did cool stuff, and
Speaker 1: you might like it if you like stories about people who. Um,
Speaker 1: I can't say cool stuff again, I'll have to use
Speaker 1: come up with more synonyms. Really, it's just all a
Speaker 1: competition to see how many synonyms for cool I can
Speaker 1: come up with without using the word based, because I
Speaker 1: feel like I'm too old to use the word based
Speaker 1: without really, this is what you are here for. So
Speaker 1: I'm much more eloquent on my podcast, which you can
Speaker 1: catch every Monday and Wednesday wherever you get your podcasts,
Speaker 1: probably wherever you got this podcast is where you can
Speaker 1: find it. And the trailer is out now, so you
Speaker 1: can go and you can listen to the trailer where
Speaker 1: I talk about some anarchist bank robbers who broke out
Speaker 1: of prison, because why would you be in prison when
Speaker 1: you could be outside of prison, which is generally the
Speaker 1: preferable position to be in, with the exception of like
Speaker 1: every now and then, like people break up out of
Speaker 1: jail by like someone goes to jail on purpose, but
Speaker 1: they have like hacks all blades in their shoes and ship.
Speaker 1: That would be cool too. Um So more breaking your
Speaker 1: friends out of jail and less chasing them out of
Speaker 1: the room jeering at them is my general rule. I
Speaker 1: hate to make rules, but if I were to make one,
Speaker 1: it would be that. And you can hear me talk
Speaker 1: about those kinds of stories on the podcast. Well, thank thank,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for joining joining us today, for
Speaker 1: for Chris to talk about the wonderful, wonderful history of
Speaker 1: Japanese and the very the many deaths that are associated
Speaker 1: in those poor people and yeah, the like so basically
Speaker 1: like a like a mini Korean genocide. Yeah, yeah, intense.
Speaker 1: Well that's it for us today. You can find this
Speaker 1: on Instagram. It Happen to your pot in cool Zone Media. Uh,
Speaker 1: see you next week and go listen to podcasts. We
Speaker 1: have many of them. Hey, we'll be back Monday with
Speaker 1: more episodes every week from now until the heat Death
Speaker 1: of the Universe. It Could Happen Here is a production
Speaker 1: of cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from cool Zone Media,
Speaker 1: visit our website cool zone media dot com or check
Speaker 1: us out on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can find sources
Speaker 1: for It Could Happen Here, updated monthly at cool zone
Speaker 1: Media dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening.