[For the US there is much to learn from the Chilean experience
about relationships between left government, movements, and popular
protagonism and the importance of political clarity, socialist
strategy and organization.]
[[link removed]]

LEARNING FROM CHILE: NAVIGATING COMPLEXITIES OF POLITICAL CRISES  
[[link removed]]


 

Pauline Lipman, Rico Gutstein
September 7, 2023
Convergence
[[link removed]]


*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

_ For the US there is much to learn from the Chilean experience about
relationships between left government, movements, and popular
protagonism and the importance of political clarity, socialist
strategy and organization. _

, A mural design from the Ramona Parra Brigade (RPB) featuring former
Chilean president Salvador Allende.

 

Twenty years of grassroots organizing by Black and Latinx community
organizations, the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU), and the broad Left
propelled CTU organizer Brandon Johnson to victory in the April 2023
Chicago mayoral race. Similarly, across the country, progressive and
left organizations are focusing on electoral politics as a central
arena of struggle. These campaigns are part of a larger motion—a new
generation of social movements, union organizing, and Black-led
uprisings against racist state violence—provoked by intertwined
political, economic, social, and ecological crises in the US and
globally. Yet our movements and campaigns lack political cohesion. We
have not yet developed the collective organizational capacity, shared
strategies, and political vision to take advantage of this moment of
destabilization of the patriarchal racial capitalist order.
Simultaneously, this crisis has fueled a white nationalist,
patriarchal backlash lurching toward authoritarian rule. So where can
we look for experiences to shed some light on how to navigate these
complexities?

Despite our different contexts, one place to look is the Global South.
Specifically, we believe Chile’s political developments over the
last four years provide sharp lessons. (These developments occurred
against the background
[[link removed]] of
the violent US-backed Chilean military coup on Sept. 11, 1973
[[link removed]] that
overthrew the democratically elected socialist government of Salvador
Allende and installed General Augusto Pinochet as dictator, launching
17 years of brutal repression. Under Pinochet, Chile, guided by US
economists, enshrined in theirconstitution the world’s first
neoliberal experiment —privatizing public goods, banning popular
organizations, and shifting wealth to the top.  In 1990, popular
mobilizations forced the re-establishment of electoral democracy, but
the power of the Right, oligarchs, and the Pinochet-era constitution
remained.)

In October 2019, Chile erupted in the largest uprising since the
dictatorship—the _estallido_—against all the abuses of
neoliberalism, patriarchy, and the coercive state.
The _estallido_ was an accumulation of social struggles over the
last two decades:  movements for public pensions, housing, water,
environmental justice, and feminist and _Mapuche _(Indigenous)
struggles, but most prominently, student movements which spawned new
left parties and a left-party coalition, _Frente
Amplio _(FA,“broad front”). Along with six months of
demonstrations across Chile, it unleashed a flourishing of local
spaces of popular participation (protagonism) and joy—grassroots
assemblies, revolutionary culture, creative protest, community
formations, and communal kitchens. A spirit of social solidarity and
hope infused everyday life. The next phase of struggle opened with the
October 2020 national plebiscite that voted almost 80% to replace
Chile’s neoliberal constitution through a grassroots process.
Chileans elected a veto-proof, super-majority,
progressive _constituent assembly_, with gender parity and Indigenous
representation, to draft the new constitution, and in December 2021,
they elected former student leader, leftist Gabriel Boric, as
president over ultra-right José Antonio Kast. This process, starting
with the _estallido, _marked an historic opportunity to move toward
fundamental transformation of the existing order.

However, Chile’s extreme COVID lockdown, the _estallido_, campaign
for Boric, etc., left social movements exhausted with weakened
capacity. Meanwhile, oligarchs and elites used their control of the
media to spread lies and fear about the new constitution. Due to these
and other factors, despite the many popular victories, in September
2022, in a mandatory national vote, Chileans overwhelmingly rejected
(_rechazo)_ the proposed new constitution for
a _plurinational_ Chile that expanded democracy and economic,
gender, and social rights, and weakened neoliberalism.
The _rechazo _wasa huge setback to the Left and all progressive
forces. Since then, an emboldened Right is on the offensive and now
controls a top-down process to redraft the constitution. In
2019, _Republicanos,_ an ultra-right/fascist party emerged. They
justify the 1973 coup and use anti-communism and racism against
Haitian and Venezuelan migrants to play on fears and disorientation
and sow disunity. 

Our perspective

We have been collaborating with Chilean education activists/organizers
since 2011. We were working in Valparaíso
[[link removed]] for four
months in 2019, our third time in Chile. When the estallido erupted,
we spent October and November participating in/observing popular
assemblies, daily demonstrations, and community events,
and documenting the uprising [[link removed]].
In December, 2022, we returned for three weeks of in-depth
conversations
[[link removed]]—4
cities, 28 meetings, 36 people, including grassroots colectivas,
social movement activists/leaders (feminist, Mapuche, union, immigrant
rights, housing), independent leftists, government officials, members
of left parties, academics, participants/leaders in the constituent
assembly, and human rights defenders.

The questions that sent us back to Chile were: What can we learn from
Chile’s intense experiences—though different from ours—to inform
our movements here? What can we learn about transforming popular
uprisings into a force towards developing real power? How does the
Left use governing power when it does not control capital and
confronts a powerful Right and inherited crises and ideologies of
neoliberal racial capitalism? For us, these are key challenges in the
US. 

Here, we want to acknowledge Chile’s complexpolitical reality. The
stakes are high, and there are multiple perspectives on _rechazo_,
social movements, political parties, strategies to move forward, etc.
We are not Chile “experts,” and our purpose is not to analyze the
situation for Chileans. Our intent is to synthesize what we have
learned from them to draw lessons and pose questions relevant for US
contexts. As outsiders from the US, our analyses are grounded in our
relationships, visits, and collaboration with Chilean comrades; our
own study and political experience as leftists and organizers; and
especially our deep conversations in December. This writing represents
our current thinking (all mis-assessments are our own). We hope it
sparks dialogue and deepening.

REFLECTIONS/ANALYSIS RELEVANT TO THE US (Quotations—anonymous and
unidentified for security purposes—are from people we met with.
“Left” refers to grassroots organizations, social movements, left
political parties, and independent leftists.)

1) IN MOMENTS OF CRISIS AND POLITICAL UPHEAVAL, IDEOLOGICAL AND
POLITICAL CLARITY ARE CRITICAL. Like the US, Chile facesmultiple,
intertwinedcrises. Fifty years of neoliberalism privatized almost all
public goods and services, intensified extreme inequality, and
perpetuated the repressive, dictatorship-era police/military force.
Due to dictatorship-era repression and neoliberal policies, the
working class is fragmented, impoverished, debt-ridden, and lives
precariously, many without unions, benefits, or sustainable pensions,
or subsists in the informal economy. Chileans want “a dignified
life”(a key slogan of the _estallido)_, evidenced by the 80% vote
to rewrite the constitution, Boric’s
election, _Mapuche_ resistance, and many social movements. This is
part of an historical process, most recently originating in the
Allende period, percolating through the dictatorship and 1990
transition to democracy, and regenerated by student movements in 2006
and 2011/2015. 

But the extreme COVID lockdown and _rechazo_ were demoralizing and
disorienting, e.g., in the north of Chile, a grassroots leader told us
that some _estallido_ participants later joined racist attacks on
Venezuelan migrants. People working within the government told us that
it “did not know what to do” and was “cornered by right-wing
press.” FA, assessing that it is weak and the Right is strong,
appears to be in retreat. Meanwhile, the Right has a clear message of
fear, racism, and anti-communism rooted in Chile’s history of
settler colonialism and dictatorship. Chilean comrades told us that
with the approaching 50th anniversary of the coup, the Right is
rewriting the narrative to “erase the student movements and justify
the coup” as necessary to control “violence.” This illustrates
that if the Left fails to provide ideological and political clarity,
organization, and direction, and work with the people to create
solutions, a moment of crisis can evolve into fascism. We see this in
the US as well. 

2) MIS-ASSESSMENTS OF SOCIAL FORCES HAVE STRATEGIC CONSEQUENCES.

* _Overestimating the Left._ Before _rechazo_, many on the Left
were overconfident, riding on the _estallido_, the overwhelming vote
to rewrite the constitution,and Boric’s victory (one person called
it “Fiesta of the Left”). With no threat of a right-wing veto,
some left assembly members experienced a “distracting sense of
power” that contributed to underestimating how much education was
needed and insufficient attention to framing constitutional provisions
so working-class people “could see themselves in it.”
* _Misunderstanding the Right and failing to take opportunities to
tactically divide/disrupt them._ The Left needs tactical flexibility
and a sharp analysis of the Right to weaken their bloc. The Right is
heterogeneous: Some favored a new constitution to quell the crisis,
others to dispel the “shadow of the dictatorship” hanging over
Chile’s international reputation. But when the Right fell short of
veto power in the constituent assembly, they coalesced around
disrupting/attacking it. For example, some left assembly members
proposed a constitutional provision to eliminate charter
schools_,_ but the Right slickly voted _with_ the Left, turning
thousands of charterparents against the new constitution. A prominent
union leader said, had the Left better understood the Right, they
could have tactically divided them to undermine _rechazo._
* _Mis-assessing the people_. We heard consistently across our
visits that there is widespread cynicism about political parties. In
December, activists told us that social movements and FA were
disconnected from the 40% of Chileans, who, for decades, have
expressed their discontent by withdrawing from institutional politics
(e.g., voting), but who voted 80-90% _rechazo _in the mandatory vote
on the new constitution. They said the Left didn’t appreciate the
distance between this discontent and people’s understanding how the
new constitution would concretely change their lives. This lack of
clarity also contributed to the Left doing insufficient education and
organizing for the new constitution. 

These mis-assessments—of the Left, the Right, the
people—contributed to _rechazo_ and stymied the capacity of
progressive sectors and movements to move Chile towards fundamental
transformation—a path that might have been clarified by a better
understanding of relations of social forces. 

3. DIALECTICALLY ASSESSING, AND LEARNING FROM,
ACCOMPLISHMENTS/DEFEATS, FROM A STRATEGIC POINT OF VIEW. To be
clear, _rechazo_ was devastating. It set back momentum to dismantle
structural and ideological bases of neoliberalism, much less consider
an alternative to capitalism and begin to redress settler colonialism.
This defeat for Latin America, and really the world, led to
demoralization and arguments for retrenchment from some we talked
with—and a green light for the Right. But others are dialectically
assessing and learning from defeats and accomplishments to see how far
the Left has come, how far they need to go, and what could be done
differently. 

Despite _rechazo_, 4.8 million people (38%) voted for a feminist,
plurinational constitution that challenged neoliberalism, patriarchy,
and settler colonialism. Grassroots elected representatives from
social sectors across Chile wrote this constitution democratically,
learning about each other’s experiences and demands. Key actors
said, “we know each other now,” and “now we have a minimum
program” to continue to organize and a departure point for dialogue
and connecting disparate movements. The experiences of working
together, the weaknesses, and _rechazo_ itself are pedagogical. We
heard many reflect on what they saw as mistakes and how they might
transcend them. And many thousands experienced the collective power of
popular participation. 

Strategically, these lessons and relationships are gains for the Left.
They further develop the basis and create conditions to align social
movements and organize around a strategy and program. But as some
activists told us, summing up dialectically is key.

4. RE-VISIONING THE ROLE OF THE LEFT IN GOVERNMENT. While the broad
Left _over_-estimated popular support, the Left in
government _under-_estimated its power in relation to popular
movements. For us, this points to the Left using governing power
differently from traditional politicians. 

* We heard often that Boric/FA didn’t intervene to support the
draft constitution. Social movement activists said Boric could have
used his TV channel and public visibility to combat the Right’s
smear campaign, debunk fake news, and do popular political education
about the draft. Instead, FA was defensive, some saying “the
constitution is flawed, but vote for it and we can fix it later.”
Their inaction created space for a right offensive. 
* People in government we talked with saw the Left as weak
and _rechazo_ as a sign that Chileans don’t want radical change:
“Chile is not ripe for dismantling neoliberalism let alone
capitalism, and even less ready for revolution.” They concluded they
should be patient, learn, hold onto power, keep open the process of
change, pass one big reform (like pensions) and gain people’s
confidence. While from their view, this is a sober assessment of the
limits of their governing power at this moment, many in social
movements—the force that put FA in government—have a different
understanding. They told us that they are another source of power,
arguing that Chileans _do_ want change. They said that in this time
of a right offensive and limited power, FA needs to work closely with
the people but instead relies on alliances with center parties and
retreats. A housing activist said, “we thought the new government
would consult with us, but we are excluded.” We heard this in
education also. In the view of these social movement actors, the
constitution failed partly because FA was disconnected from the
people, _and_ because Boric/FA did not use their power and public
platform to support the new constitution and mobilize people—while
also acknowledging the power of the Right (fake news, narrative
shaping) and social movements’ lack of capacity contributed to
the _rechazo._
* In FA’s case, it is not clear, and we did not hear articulated,
how moving into government is linked to a long-term strategy to
fundamentally move past the neoliberal model and transform Chile in
the spirit of the _estallido_, towards a “dignified life.”

We draw from this the imperative for left parties and elected
officials to be rooted in the working class and strategically aligned
with popular movements. This implies the ideological understanding
that the protagonism of working-class communities, organizations,
social movements, institutions, and other progressive sectors is the
driving force for social transformation (as social movements argue).
Electoral politics is important, but not decisive—it is a form of
struggle more effective when strategically linked to mass
organizations. Left parties, their elected officials, and social
movements need deep connections with the broad working class and its
most active sectors, and they need strategy through which all actors
play their specific roles, _in_ _coordination_ toward shared
political goals—a vision of how the Left can move towards real power
that is eminently relevant to the US.

5. IMPORTANCE OF INTER-GENERATIONAL MOVEMENTS ROOTED IN THE WORKING
CLASS. Many current leaders come from student movements that
importantly re-envisioned left politics as feminist, plurinational,
and environmental. But they don’t have the benefit of the experience
of Allende-generation leftists, militants, and union and peasant
leaders, many of whom were assassinated, tortured, or exiled, and
whose children were terrorized—deep trauma that persists today.
Chile’s new leadership is largely middle-class vs. the Allende
period when the Left was rooted in a much more organized working
class. The lack of intergenerational experience and disconnection from
the working class are legacies of Chile’s dictatorship, limitations
faced by the new, young government. We face similar issues in the US.
 

6. COMBATING PATRIARCHY, RACISM, AND SETTLER COLONIALISM. Patriarchy
and settler colonialism are integral to Chile’s economic and
political order—patriarchy maintains the subordination of women and
legitimates unpaid reproductive labor, and settler colonialism,
including past and current Chilean governments, continues the overall
domination of Indigenous life. Abortion is virtually illegal; gender
oppression and violence against women have fueled a powerful feminist
movement that played a major role in the _estallido_ and
constitutional process. The state preserves a violent settler
colonial relationship with Indigenous people
[[link removed]] through
extractivism, militarization, political marginalization, theft of
land, culture, and language, fueling resistance. 

However, some movement leaders claimed feminism and plurinationality
are “identity” issues distracting from “material” class
issues, and the focus on them in the draft constitution undercut
working-class support. And although _Mapuche_ flags were iconic in
the _estallido_, few people we talked with, other than _Mapuche_,
human rights defenders, and some grassroots activists, mentioned
racism. But the Right understood that, as in the US, ideologies that
legitimate these systems are essential to prevent class/race/gender
solidarity. In their pro-_rechazo _campaign, they played “legal
abortion” and “Mapuche terrorism” cards, exploiting fear and
insecurity_. _

For us, this is a sharp example of the importance of political clarity
on challenging patriarchy, racism, and settler colonialism as class
issues and fundamental to forge a political project for the vast
majority. “We need to go together” a feminist Mapuche leader said,
and “_La Revolución Será Feminista, o No Será_” emblazons
feminist banners. 

CONCLUSION

Chile’s twists and turns exemplify the political volatility of the
present conjuncture. The demand for “a dignified life” was
objectively revolutionary—unable to be met by Chile’s existing
order. The _estallido_ and constitutional process created an
historic opportunity to not only break with the legacy of the
dictatorship and neoliberalism but to embark on a trajectory toward an
economic and political order focused on human flourishing. But Chile
illustrates, again,that political ruptures can go either way. Chileans
were unable to convert a social uprising into concrete steps toward
social transformation. Essentially everyone we spoke with told us a
key factor was lack of strategy toward a common political project. In
many conversations, the need for ideological and political clarity was
a throughline. There were sharply different assessments of the
relations of social forces, positioning of
feminism/anti-racism/anti-colonialism in a broad social agenda—and
how to move forward. These contradictions reflect the current
political development of the Chilean Left, and are central challenges
we face in the US. 

In particular, there was consensus that FA was unsure how to govern
when confronted with _rechazo_, deep social crises, and the right
offensive—a situation not so distant from US progressive politics.
Based on her experience in Latin American social movements, Chilean
political theorist Marta Harnecker
[[link removed]] re-visioned the
role of the Left in government, grounded in understanding that the
people make history. Harnecker concluded that while left governments
like FA have to improve material conditions and instill confidence,
they also need to risk trusting the people. Seeing their role as
political organizer and teacher/learner, they practice a “pedagogy
of limitations”—explain to people the challenges and what it would
take to shift the relation of forces, “simultaneously accompanied by
the fomentation of popular mobilizations and creativity.” Chilean
people have clearly demonstrated their capacity for protagonism. And a
sector of the movements is focused on base organizing, educating, and
connecting with the disconnected 40% “so next time they will know
where to find us.” 

We also are confronted with an historic opportunity—a crisis
brimming with danger and possibility, with no clear resolution,
exemplified by social movement political victories _and _challenges
and contradictions we face in Chicago. Above all, Chile (re)confirmed
for us the necessity for a new kind of party, or “political
instrument,” that Harnecker proposes—a non-sectarian, democratic,
disciplined political organization capable of developing revolutionary
strategy that can actually dismantle racial capitalism and move
towards reinventing socialism for our century. Rooted in social
movements and working-class organizations, it works inside and outside
institutional politics to educate, organize, and promote broad
protagonism to shift the balance of forces away from fascism and
toward liberation. We are inspired and encouraged by steps some social
movement leaders with whom we talked are taking toward this goal in
Chile “so next time this doesn’t happen.”  

_PAULINE LIPMAN is a life-long political activist and organizer.  She
is a founding member of Teachers for Social Justice in Chicago where,
for the past two decades, she has been involved in struggles against
racist school closings and education privatization and for
community-driven schools in coalition with community organizations,
parents, and the Chicago Teachers Union. She also has learned so much
from collaborating with educators and social activists in Chile.
Pauline is Professor of Education Policy Studies at University of
Illinois-Chicago. Her research, writing, and teaching focus on
political economy of urban education, particularly the
inter-relationship of education and neoliberal urban policy, racial
capitalism, and possibilities for a radically democratic economic and
political social order. She also collaborates with community
organizations on research to challenge racist neoliberal policies and
fight for equitable, just, liberatory education._

_ERIC “RICO” GUTSTEIN has been part of the education justice
movement in Chicago for the past 25 years, a co-founder of Teachers
for Social Justice (Chicago), 1998, and was involved in other
political movements before that. He was radicalized young, due to the
times in which he grew up. Since 1994, he’s been a critical
university educator, teaching/researching/writing about education in
political contexts. He was part of the founding “design team” of
Chicago’s Social Justice HS (2005), worked and taught there five
years, and has worked closely with schools, teachers, parents, youth,
community members and organizations, and the CTU in the intense
movements against education privatization, school closings, and
charter proliferation. He’s a city boy from New York to his heart,
but loves ChiTown too. The inspiration from the struggle of the
Chilean people for justice and humanity moves him every day._

_CONVERGENCE is a magazine for radical insights. We produce articles,
videos, and podcasts to sharpen our collective practice, lift up
stories about organizing, and engage in strategic debate — all with
the goal of winning multi-racial democracy and a radically democratic
economy._

_Stay up to date on the latest from Convergence Magazine. Subscribe
[[link removed]]. Donate
[[link removed]]._

* Chile
[[link removed]]
* elections
[[link removed]]
* Chicago Teachers Union
[[link removed]]
* Politics
[[link removed]]
* Strategy
[[link removed]]
* organizing
[[link removed]]
* chicago
[[link removed]]

*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

 

 

 

INTERPRET THE WORLD AND CHANGE IT

 

 

Submit via web
[[link removed]]

Submit via email
Frequently asked questions
[[link removed]]

Manage subscription
[[link removed]]

Visit xxxxxx.org
[[link removed]]

Twitter [[link removed]]

Facebook [[link removed]]

 




[link removed]

To unsubscribe, click the following link:
[link removed]