Direct Action in Montevideo is the astonishing tale of anarchists willing to use extraordinary methods to achieve their goals. Seen as mere criminals by the legal system, the author met many of them in prison, where he was serving his own sentence. Politicized by his experiences, he went on to eventually write their story, which was also the story of a culture of solidarity and resistance in the face of oppression. These men were rebels who violated the norms of a social order they considered unjust, often responding to the violence of exploitation and immiseration with a violence of their own, robbing banks to fund revolutionary activities, planting bombs, fighting strikebreakers, aiding fugitives, and attacking, even assassinating, bosses and political figures.
The transition to democracy underway in Latin America since the 1980s has recently witnessed a resurgence of interest in experimenting with new forms of local governance emphasizing more participation by ordinary citizens. The hope is both to foster the spread of democracy and to improve equity in the distribution of resources. While participatory budgeting has been a favorite topic of many scholars studying this new phenomenon, there are many other types of ongoing experiments. In Barrio Democracy in Latin America, Eduardo Canel focuses our attention on the innovative participatory programs launched by the leftist government in Montevideo, Uruguay, in the early 1990s. Based on his extensive ethnographic fieldwork, Canel examines how local activists in three low-income neighborhoods in that city dealt with the opportunities and challenges of implementing democratic practices and building better relationships with sympathetic city officials.
Students take to the streets -- Coordinates of a cycle of protest -- On violence -- The unions and the movement -- The Lefts and the students -- Paths and paradoxes of revolutionary action -- Militant mystiques -- Youth cultures -- More nuances -- Conclusion : 1968 and the emergence of a "New Left
A Cold War-era study of Latin American anarchism in action. Araiza Kokinis's study of the Uruguayan Anarchist Federation (FAU) broadens our understanding of the Cold War-era political landscape beyond the capitalism-communism and Old Left-New Left binaries that dominate the historiography of the epoch. Arguably the most impactful anarchist organization globally in the Cold War era, the FAU viewed everyday people as revolutionary protagonists and sought to develop a popular counter-subjectivity through accumulating experiences directly challenging the market and the state. The FAU argued that everyday people transformed into revolutionary subjects through the regular practice of collective direct action in labor unions, student organizations, and neighborhood councils. Their slogan was "create popular power," and their praxis differed from nationalist strains of Marxism at the time. The strategies and tactics promoted by FAU, ones in which everyday people took on roles as historical protagonists, offered the largest threat to maintaining social order in Uruguay and thus spawned a military takeover of the state to dismantle and deflate their vibrant popular revolt. With less than 80 militants, FAU played a key role both sparking and networking popular protagonism in workplaces, neighborhoods, and on campuses. The FAU worked in coalition with the Communist Party (PCU), MLN-Tupamaros (MLN-T), and other Left organizations to support a unified Left project while simultaneously challenging hegemonic strategies, tactics, and discourses. Unlike other anarchist groups worldwide, which took to individualism and counterculture in response to Marxism’s popularity throughout the sixties, the FAU embraced Third Worldism and a class struggle strategy that made them a relevant force amongst popular social movements. Throughout the constitutional dictatorship (1967–73), the Tendencia Combativa, a coalition of dissident labor unions spearheaded by FAU, controlled one-third of the nation’s unions in some of the most lucrative industries, especially in the private sector. By the time of June 27, 1973, military coup, a majority of Uruguayan industrialists recognized organized labor as the most serious threat to national security. Moreover, communications between US Ambassador to Uruguay Ernest V. Siracusa and US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, showed the dictatorship’s primary concern was to repress the surging labor movement rather than confronting a waning Tupamaro guerrilla movement. The FAU’s anarchist activism within this broader climate of worker revolt threw a wrench in the 1970s neoliberal experiments in Latin America that later migrated north to impoverish American workers from the 1980s until today.
This book takes an innovative look at international relations. Focusing on the worldwide campaign against abuses by the right-wing authoritarian regime in Uruguay (1973-1984), it explores how norms and ideas interact with political interests, both global and domestic. It examines joint actions by differently-motivated actors such as the leftist activists who had to flee Uruguay in these years, the Organization of American States, The United Nations, Amnesty International, and the United States. It traces language and procedures for making their claims. The chief goal, however, is to peruse the specific reasons that led these actors to endorse the central core of liberal rights that gave foundation to this system. A close examination of the available documents shows that even as they joined efforts to protest abuses, they were still pursuing their individual agendas, which is often overlooked in the existing scholarship on human rights transnational activism. The book pays special attention to the Uruguayan exiles, analyzing why and how leftist activists and leaders adopted the human rights language, which had so far been used to attack communism in the context of the Cold War.
The FAU, founded in 1956, was one of the strongest anarchist movements in Latin America. In the 1960s, it faced a rising tide of repression which would culminate in the military dictatorship of 1973-85. Elements of the FAU were fundamental in the creation of the People's Victory Party (PVP).
Paul G. Buchanan and Kate Nicholls explore the political and economic fortunes of organised labour in five small open democracies between 1975 and 2000. Of particular interest is the role of labour market institutions, organisational histories, and trade union ideologies in shaping outcomes under conditions of economic liberalisation. The book includes a theoretical and methodological introduction, followed by individual discussions of Australia and Chile, and New Zealand and Uruguay, grouped a cross-regional pairs, and Ireland as an extra-regional and atypical case.
