Anarchism in Peru emerged from the Peruvian trade union movement during the late 19th century and the first two decades of the 20th century.
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Anarchism in Peru emerged from the Peruvian trade union movement during the late 19th century and the first two decades of the 20th century.
The beginnings of anarchism in Peru can be traced back to 1870. In the craftsmen's guilds at the end of the 19th century, a certain anarchist orientation began to gain influence. [1] In 1904 the first anarchist organizations began to appear, with forming the "Star of Perú" Federation of Bakers (FOPEP), founded by the libertarian militants Fidel García Gacitúa, Urmachea and Manuel Caracciolo Lévano; that year they carried out their first strike. On May 1, 1905, a commemorative event for the Haymarket Martyrs was held for the first time. In 1907, Anarchists participated in strikes at the port of Callao, the repression that followed took the life of Florencio Aliaga. [1] In 1906 the newspaper Humanity appeared in Lima, and in 1910 it published Free Pages by the Francisco Ferrer Rationalist Center. In 1907, the brothers Lévano, Romilio Quesada, Luis Felipe Grillo and the publishing group of "Humanity" founded the "Primero de Mayo" Center for Social Studies. The anarchist Julio Reynaga (1841–1923), one of the organizers of the Trujillo sugar workers. [2] In this city, an anarchist group was formed by some Italian immigrants like Inocencio Lombardozzi. Reynaga was editor of "El Jornalero", whose offices were located in the premises of the "Unión y Energía" Center for Social Studies. During these years, the main libertarian newspapers, in addition to those mentioned, were El Ariete (Arequipa), La Abeja (Chiclayo), La Antorcha and El Rebelde (Trujillo), El Hambriento and Simiente Roja, and Los Parias (Lima), directed by González Prada between 1904 and 1906.
In 1911, the first general strike in the textile industry was launched by anarchists. Then, in 1912, the Peruvian Regional Workers' Federation (FORP) arose from the anarcho-syndicalist movement. [3] In 1913 the anarchists participated in the general strike called by the Union of Day Laborers, with the aim of achieving the 8-hour workday. Among the participating groups were the Peruvian Regional Workers Federation and its affiliated guilds and resistance societies, "Luchadores por la Verdad" (led by the bricklayer Abraham Guerrero), "Luz y Amor" (Callao) and the publishing group of the newspaper "La Protesta", the main anarchist newspaper in Peru (founded by A. Guerrero in 1911, edited until 1926). [3] The 8-hour day was granted by the José Pardo y Barreda government in January 1919. Months later, the "Pro-cheapening of Subsistence Committee" was created, led by the joiner Nicolás Gutarra, the purpose of which was to lower the prices of food, clothing, transportation, rent, and taxes. After the Leguía coup and the liberation of labor leaders from prison, in July 1919 the Peruvian Regional Workers' Federation was re-constituted with a declaration of anarcho-syndicalist principles. [4] This stage of Peruvian anarchism was strongly influenced by the experiences of the Argentine Regional Workers' Federation (FORA), and of Italian and Spanish libertarian immigrants.
In those years, some libertarian workers met regularly at the Lévano house (located in La Victoria District, Lima) where they "spoke like doctors. Backing up their opinions, they displayed their knowledge as they quoted Peter Kropotkin, Mikhail Bakunin, Anselmo Lorenzo and Errico Malatesta". [5] There were also some students who were sympathetic to libertarian ideas, such as Juan Manuel Carreño and Erasmo Roca.
Among the prominent militants of the time were Manuel C. Lévano, Delfín Lévano, Carlos Barba, Nicolás Gutarra, Pedro Cisneros, Adalberto Fonkén, Eulogio Otazú, Christian Dam, and Manuel González Prada. González Prada was the author of important and influential texts: Free Pages (1894) and Hours of Struggle (1908).
González Prada was concerned with the ethnic-class relationship, exposing the exploitation of indigenous people and the different manifestations of "racial" discrimination. This remarkable writer, admired by Mariátegui, who took his indigenista flags and combined his peasant activity with various tasks in the labor movement.
— Luis Vitale [6]
In the 1910s and 1920s, in the town of Vitarte (east of Lima), there was a solid anarchist nucleus, linked to the workers at the local textile factory. One of the first propagandists of anarchist ideas and a member of the La Protesta group was the spinner called Juan Híjar Salazar. Other anarchists from Vitarte included Celso Soto, Gumercindo Calderón, Antonio Patrón, Noé Salcedo, Fernando Borjas, Esther del Solar, Miguel Pasquel, Augustina Araníbar and A. Fonkén. Julio Portocarrero, a prominent socialist trade unionist, was prone to libertarian ideas in his early youth, as he distributed the newspaper "La Protesta" for several years at the Vitarte factory. [7] An important cultural tradition, promoted by libertarians in Vitarte, was the so-called Plant Festival, which emerged in the early 1920s, with the aim of becoming a proletarian alternative to the Christian holiday of Christmas. The first Feast of the Plant was held on December 25, 1921. The Libertarian Women's Center was one of the organizations that participated, along with several delegations.
During the 1920s, the Union of Civil Construction Workers emerged, publishing El Nivel and El Obrero Constructor. During these years, government repression was felt strongly, closing printing presses and stores, in addition to murdering many anarchists. In Trujillo, anarcho-syndicalists participated in a workers' uprising, which would be capitalized on by the American Revolutionary Popular Alliance (APRA). The decline of anarchism due to repression caused anarchists to lose positions in the labor movement. Some activists were deported, in the case of Gutarra, who was deported to Colombia in the early 1920s, and then on to Panama in 1924.
In the Anarchist Federation of Peru was formed by some of the militants who continued the libertarian tradition gathered. They republished "La Protesta" for 2 years and edited documents until the 1960s, when it disappeared entirely. Teobaldo Cayetano was a baker worker who belonged to the "Arm and brain", a libertarian cell of the "Star of Peru" . He wrote in La Protesta, during the 1940s. In 1957, he was appointed defense secretary of the "La Estrella" Huancayo Society of Bakers. In the early 1960s, he was elected regional secretary of Lima by this union.
The Institute of Studies and Research of Cooperatives and Communities (Indeicoc) was a center of libertarian inspiration, which came into operation in the first half of the 70s. It claimed self-management and libertarian socialism as pillars of a free society: “Self-management or democratic management of the means of production, where the worker acquires a double condition: producer and manager of the company. He ceases to be a salaried worker and becomes a free and associated producer." [8] Members of Indeicoc included Jaime Llosa Larrabure, Víctor Gutiérrez Saco and Gerardo Cárdenas.
Libertarian activity reappeared with some notoriety towards the end of the 1980s linked to the underground music movement of Lima, which acquired a gradual politicization and radicalization of its positions. The repressive climate generated by antiterrorist laws limited the growth and evolution of these anarchist groups, which were striving to differentiate themselves from the guerrilla left. In the early 1990s, anarchist groups less linked to the underground music scene began to appear. In Lima the anarcho-syndicalist groups "Proletarian Autonomy" and "Collectivization" emerged.
In 2001, after many years, an anarchist newspaper "Disobedience" began to be printed in Lima, which continues to appear to this day, maintaining a perspective of critical anarchism. The Libertarian Workshop was formed, which brought together activists from different generations, including Víctor Gutiérrez, Ch. Zénder and L. Villavicencio. In 2008, the bimonthly newspaper Humanity was founded by five libertarian activists. It took a combative and analytical style, within the guidelines of classical anarchism. Members of Humanity later founded the newspaper Direct Action, with an anarcho-communist tendency.
Within the especifist and platformist current is the Libertarian Socialist Union, a continuation of the Qhispikay Llaqta and Estrella Negra groups. Within the autonomist current is the "Anarchist Group La Protesta", the "Arteria Libertaria Collective", the "Yacta Runa Autonomous Collective" and the "Active Minority Collective" from Arequipa. Within the anarchopunk and counterculture spectrum there is the Anarkopunk Social Center, Anarchopunk Resistance, Anarchopunk Youth Collective of Tacna in Struggle, the band Asteroids 500. mg, Axión Anarkopunk and the bands Generación Perdida, Autonomía, Feria Libertaria Kallejera and Men and Women in Our Anarchist Struggle. [9]
Syndicalism is a revolutionary current within the labour movement that, through industrial unionism, seeks to unionize workers according to industry and advance their demands through strikes, with the eventual goal of gaining control over the means of production and the economy at large through social ownership. Developed in French labor unions during the late 19th century, syndicalist movements were most predominant amongst the socialist movement during the interwar period that preceded the outbreak of World War II.
Anarcho-syndicalism is an anarchist organisational model that centres trade unions as a vehicle for class conflict. Drawing from the theory of libertarian socialism and the practice of syndicalism, anarcho-syndicalism sees trade unions as both a means to achieve immediate improvements to working conditions and to build towards a social revolution in the form of a general strike, with the ultimate aim of abolishing the state and capitalism. Anarcho-syndicalists consider trade unions to be the prefiguration of a post-capitalist society and seek to use them in order to establish workers' control of production and distribution. An anti-political ideology, anarcho-syndicalism rejects political parties and participation in parliamentary politics, considering them to be a corrupting influence on the labour movement. In order to achieve their material and economic goals, anarcho-syndicalists instead practice direct action in the form of strike actions, boycotts and sabotage. Anarcho-syndicalists also attempt to build solidarity among the working class, in order to unite workers against the exploitation of labour and build workers' self-management.
Anarchism in Sweden first grew out of the nascent social democratic movement during the later 19th century, with a specifically libertarian socialist tendency emerging from a split in the movement. As with the movements in Germany and the Netherlands, Swedish anarchism had a strong syndicalist tendency, which culminated in the establishment of the Central Organisation of the Workers of Sweden (SAC) following an aborted general strike. The modern movement emerged during the late 20th century, growing within a number of countercultural movements before the revival of anarcho-syndicalism during the 1990s.
Jose Manuel de los Reyes González de Prada y Ulloa was a Peruvian politician and anarchist, literary critic and director of the National Library of Peru. The first writer to criticize the oligarchy within Peru, he is well remembered as a social critic who helped develop Peruvian intellectual thought in the early twentieth century, as well as the academic style known as modernismo.
Anarchism as a social movement in Cuba held great influence with the working classes during the 19th and early 20th century. The movement was particularly strong following the abolition of slavery in 1886, until it was repressed first in 1925 by President Gerardo Machado, and more thoroughly by Fidel Castro's Marxist–Leninist government following the Cuban Revolution in the late 1950s. Cuban anarchism mainly took the form of anarcho-collectivism based on the works of Mikhail Bakunin and, later, anarcho-syndicalism. The Latin American labor movement, and by extension the Cuban labor movement, was at first more influenced by anarchism than Marxism.
Anarchism in Australia arrived within a few years of anarchism developing as a distinct tendency in the wake of the 1871 Paris Commune. Although a minor school of thought and politics, composed primarily of campaigners and intellectuals, Australian anarchism has formed a significant current throughout the history and literature of the colonies and nation. Anarchism's influence has been industrial and cultural, though its influence has waned from its high point in the early 20th century where anarchist techniques and ideas deeply influenced the official Australian union movement. In the mid 20th century anarchism's influence was primarily restricted to urban bohemian cultural movements. In the late 20th century and early 21st century Australian anarchism has been an element in Australia's social justice and protest movements.
The International Anarchist Congress of Amsterdam took place from 24 August to 31 August 1907. It gathered delegates from 14 countries, among which important figures of the anarchist movement, including Errico Malatesta, Luigi Fabbri, Benoît Broutchoux, Pierre Monatte, Amédée Dunois, Emma Goldman, Rudolf Rocker, Christiaan Cornelissen, et al.
The Argentine anarchist movement was the strongest such movement in South America. It was strongest between 1890 and the start of a series of military governments in 1930. During this period, it was dominated by anarchist communists and anarcho-syndicalists. The movement's theories were a hybrid of European anarchist thought and local elements, just as it consisted demographically of both European immigrant workers and native Argentines.
Anarchism in Ecuador appeared at the end of the 19th century. At the beginning of the 20th century, it started to gain influence in sectors of organized workers and intellectuals.
Anarchism in Bolivia has a relatively short but rich history, spanning over a hundred years, primarily linked to syndicalism, the peasantry, and various social movements. Its heyday was during the 20th century's first decades, between 1910 and 1930, but a number of contemporary movements still exist.
Anarchism in Venezuela has historically played a fringe role in the country's politics, being consistently smaller and less influential than equivalent movements in much of the rest of South America. It has, however, had a certain impact on the country's cultural and political evolution.
The anarchist movement in Chile emerged from European immigrants, followers of Mikhail Bakunin affiliated with the International Workingmen's Association, who contacted Manuel Chinchilla, a Spaniard living in Iquique. Their influence could be perceived at first within the labour unions of typographers, painters, builders and sailors. During the first decades of the 20th century, anarchism had a significant influence on the labour movement and intellectual circles of Chile. Some of the most prominent Chilean anarchists were: the poet Carlos Pezoa Véliz, the professor Dr Juan Gandulfo, the syndicalist workers Luis Olea, Magno Espinoza, Alejandro Escobar y Carballo, Ángela Muñoz Arancibia, Juan Chamorro, Armando Triviño and Ernesto Miranda, the teacher Flora Sanhueza, and the writers José Domingo Gómez Rojas, Fernando Santiván, José Santos González Vera and Manuel Rojas. At the moment, anarchist groups are experiencing a comeback in Chile through various student collectives, affinity groups, community and cultural centres, and squatting.
Anarchism in Paraguay has held influence among the urban and rural working classes since the end of the 19th century. Its main figure was the writer and journalist Rafael Barrett.
The Peruvian Regional Workers' Federation was an anarcho-syndicalist federation of unions, Guilds and resistance societies that was founded in 1912 in Peru. It was prominent in the fight to achieve the eight-hour workday.
Anarchism in Portugal first appeared in the form of organized groups in the mid-1880s. It was present from the first steps of the workers' movement, revolutionary unionism and anarcho-syndicalism had a lasting influence on the General Confederation of Labour, founded in 1919.
Anarchism in Panama began as an organized movement among immigrant workers, brought to the country to work on the numerous megaprojects throughout its history.
Anarchism in Costa Rica emerged in the 1890s, when it first came to the attention of the country's ruling elites, including the Catholic Church.
Anarchism in El Salvador reached its peak during the labour movement of the 1920s, in which anarcho-syndicalists played a leading role. The movement was subsequently suppressed by the military dictatorship before experiencing a resurgence in the 21st century.
Anarchism in Guatemala emerged from the country's labor movement in the late 19th century. Anarcho-syndicalism rose to prominence in the early 20th century, reaching its peak during the 1920s, before being suppressed by the right-wing dictatorship of Jorge Ubico.
Anarchism in Denmark emerged in the late 19th century from the revolutionary factions of early social democratic spheres, crystalizing into a widespread anarcho-syndicalist movement that reached its height during the late 1910s. After the disintegration of organized syndicalism, anarchists in post-war Denmark began to organize the squatters' movement, which led to the creation of Freetown Christiania.
