The State, Politics and Peasant Unions in Chile
For the last fifty years Chilean rural unionism has been characterised by a structural weakness vis-a-vis the state, political parties and the vested landed interests. For instance, the formation of peasant unions remained illegal until 1967 and, after a short period of strength during the land reform, they could only barely survive the military takeover of 1973. So, in marked contrast to miners and industrial workers who since the 1930S have built strong national organisations and achieved significant bargaining power within Chilean society peasant unions have always had to rely on the support of urban social and political forces to exist. This article has two main objectives. First, to show that from the 1930S until the present, the development of Chilean rural unionism has been conditioned by and subordinated to the political and economic needs of the dominant sector controlling the state apparatus. Both the strengthening of peasant unions during the Agrarian Reform and their repression by the military government are, in my view, the result of policies formulated mainly by urban interests. So, in order to understand the main social and political dynamics which have determined the development of the Chilean rural unions, we need to go beyond the strictly agrarian environment to focus our attention on the central objectives of the power bloc.