Paper short abstract:

This paper analyses rural mobilization in Chile during the 1920s, and assesses its impact on national politics. It argues that the proletarianization of the haciendas’ work force led to the formation of a rural working class, which joined the national labour movement’s challenge to oligarchic rule.

Paper long abstract:

Contrary to interpretations of rural Chile as an archaic countryside unaffected by social conflict prior to 1930, this paper analyses the transformation of rural workers' collective action, and assesses its impact on the political crisis that brought the end of oligarchic during the nation's "troubled twenties." Based on evidence from a wide range of hitherto unused sources, especially estate reports by graduating agronomists, local newspapers and Labour Office documentation, the paper demonstrates that the transition of the hacienda system towards agrarian capitalism drastically changed rural labour systems, ending the precarious 'peasantness' of the labour tenants. Thus, the gradual proletarianisation of large haciendas' work force also transformed the nature and scope of peasants' politics. Rural workers engaged for the first time in a wave of mobilisation that included unionisation, strikes, labour petitions to estate administrators and authorities, and even participation in political organisations. In particular, through a detailed study of rural strikes the paper shows that rural mobilisation followed a clearly discernible pattern. Workers went on strike not only to confront landowners, but also to advance their demands through the institutional framework provided by the state's Labour Office, while activists from the Federación Obrera de Chile (FOCh) worked to integrate the rural proletariat into the nation's growing labour movement. As the landowning elite's aggressive response indicates, rural mobilization was significant in Chilean politics because it had become an essential part of the national labour movement and its challenge to oligarchic rule.