White -collar revolutionaries: Middle -class unions and the rise of the Chilean left, 1918--193

Between the two World Wars, middle-class groups began to organize and even unionize in Latin America. Although scholars have long argued that during this period the middle class became an important player in Latin American politics, very few have looked at the role of these unions. In particular, virtually no work has been done on Chilean middle-class unions. This neglect is curious because in Chile the middle-class unions did in fact make a very important contribution to political life. They supported radical political positions and contributed to the formation and consolidation of Marxist parties. Eventually, these parties became the strongest Marxist parties in Latin America, due in part to middle-class support.;In my dissertation I argue that the propaganda of middle-class unions explains why such important middle-class elements supported the Marxist left in Chile. Specifically, I base my argument on an examination of the union propaganda of teachers, small retail merchants, and white-collar workers---the groups that most Chileans thought of as middle class in this period. This union propaganda reveals these groups' political ideology and chronicles their rejection of the existing liberal order as well as their search for political alternatives. In the early 1930s the unions shifted away from other political alternatives and towards Marxism. During this critical period, these middle-class groups contributed to the rise of Marxist parties in several ways. Structurally, they provided both leaders and a key base of voting support. Ideologically, the middle-class leftists brought with them a whole system of beliefs about culture, economics and politics that was to influence these parties for decades to come.