The Educational Philosophy of Luis Emilio Recabarren

Pioneering Working-Class Education in Latin America

María Alicia Rueda

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN:
  9780367675097
• eBook ISBN:
  9781000296037
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Adult Education

This text offers a unique philosophical and historical inquiry into the educational vision of Luis Emilio Recabarren, and his pivotal role in securing independent education for Chile's working classes in the early 20th century.

Through close analysis of the textual archives and press writings, The Educational Philosophy of Luis Emilio Recabarren offers comprehensive insight into Recabarren's belief in education as essential to the empowerment, emancipation, and political independence of the working class, and emphasises the importance he placed on the education of workers through experiential learning in their organizations and press. By situating his work amongst broader political and educational movements occurring in Latin America in an era of imperialism, the text also demonstrates the progressive nature of Recabarren's work and maps the development of his philosophy amid Socialist, Marxist, and Communist movements.

Making an important contribution to our understanding of the aims and value of adult education in light of neoliberalism today, this text will be of interest to scholars, researchers, activists, and post-graduate students with an interest in education, social movements, and Latin America. The text also addresses key issues raised in studies of Recabarren and the history of education in Chile.

1 Luis Emilio Recabarren

Educator of the Chilean Working Class

Luis Emilio Recabarren’s (1876–1924) life parallels the start and demise of the Nitrate Era (1880–1930). His active political life began shortly after the Civil War (1891) and the death of President Balmaceda (1886–1891) and ended in 1924, when the exploitation of nitrates in Chile was coming to an end. Although not an educator in a formal sense of the word, his image as the educator of the working class he came from and helped organize has remained in time (Alegría, 1968; Furci, 1984; Lafertte, 1971; Loyola Tapia, 2000; Massardo, 2008; Witker Velásquez, 1977).

The “Nitrate Era” (Artaza Barrios, 2006a, 2006b; Monteón, 1982; Pinto Vallejos, 1998; Recabarren Rojas, 1954) created an industrial proletariat in the north of the country that would often confront the Chilean state and the foreign companies involved in the exploitation of nitrates. Similar struggles went on in other parts of the country and in the urban areas, where a new working class¹ was filling the cities in search of the new manufacturing jobs (Ortiz Letelier, 2005). Recabarren became a leader who systematically gave direction to the organizing of these workers in parties, federations, and cooperatives.

As a typographer, Recabarren came in contact with newspaper activity from a very early age (Alegría, 1968). This trade would turn out to be fundamental for his political education, as well as for his vocation as educator of the working class. Recabarren (1921/1965b) thought that the working class should be educated to fulfill its role in society and conceived of the press as an educational tool. He also envisioned the organizations he founded and led as schools for the working class.

For this purpose, Recabarren founded, and helped found a great number of working-class newspapers (see Appendix A, Table A.1), and he organized and led a number of political parties and workers’ federations. The workers themselves would know him as El Maestro, The Teacher.² Massardo (2008) pointed out that Recabarren, like Gramsci according to Roland, became “the teacher of the proletarian revolution”³ (p. 20). Furthermore, Massardo (2008) argued, basing this idea on Salvador Ocampo’s Recabarren, el Maestro: “[I]t is this nickname [el Maestro], the one with which the workers’ tradition has identified Recabarren and, eventually, the image with which this workers’ tradition recognizes itself in relation to him” (p. 20). Recabarren played the role of a “foundational myth”⁴ Massardo (2008) says, quoting Loyola Tapia (2000), and insisted that it is the “pedagogical dimension of his cultural work where one needs to submerge oneself to find the genesis of the myth” (p. 20). It is, therefore, Recabarren as an educator of the proletariat in Chile that is at the center of my research.

The original questions I attempted to answer had to do with the reputation Luis Emilio Recabarren had in the history of Chile as the educator of the working class, the educator of the proletarian revolution, the father of the workers’ movement. As Furci (1984) stated in one of the few studies of the subject in English: “No one studying the Chilean labour movement and the origins of the PCCh can fail to mention Luis Emilio Recabarren, the Maestro or Profeta de la Pampa, as he is called by Chilean Communists” (p. 26). In reviewing the literature available, what I found was that no one failed to mention Recabarren as the teacher, the educator of the Chilean working class, and as the founder of the Communist Party of Chile. Nevertheless, most of the literature limited the information to a reference, without showing or explaining why he was considered the educator of the working class. Furci (1984) himself limited an explanation to “Recabarren’s first aim was to educate the working people, the poor people” (p. 20). In the older literature, if writing more extensively about Recabarren at all, writers referred to secondary literature that overwhelmingly relied on the works of Hernán Ramírez Necochea, considered by all as the historian of the Communist Party of Chile (CPCh). Given the importance that the Chilean workers’ movement had internationally, as well as nationally, the absence of works on Recabarren’s influence and on Recabarren’s works seemed odd, particularly since he was a prolific journalist. Asked about the absence of works on Recabarren in 1987, Millas (1987), as others have pointed out later, implied that works about Recabarren that were in the making in the early 1970s were interrupted by the advent of the military dictatorship (1973–1988). Devés (1991) elaborated on this point further, discussing the effect the dictatorship had on Chilean historiography in general, but particularly on the studies of working-class subjects. Also, part of the absence in the literature was due to the unavailability of Recabarren’s works. Articles and essays existed but in the old newspapers that had not been classified and systematized. When Cruzat and Devés (1985, 1986a, 1986b, 1987) published the compiled volumes in the mid-1980s, original works started to appear and a few compilations of Recabarren’s extended works were also published. Having access to his journal articles in chronologically organized volumes, as well as to compilations of his essays, has allowed a few researchers today to explore Recabarren’s thought and practical endeavors, and add a new page to the history of the period, particularly to the role of Recabarren in the history of the CPCh. My question of why Chilean workers considered him so fondly as their educator led me to embark on a close historical and philosophical analysis of all his published works in order to identify the nature of his philosophical and educational vision.

Accomplishing this required answering two primary questions related to Recabarren’s philosophical and pedagogical outlook. First, what was the nature of his educational outlook? In other words, what was it that he meant by education and what were the philosophical underpinnings of his understandings of education? Second, what practical expressions did his philosophical and educational outlook take and how were those expressions informed?

With the exception of one bachelor’s thesis on the educational role of the newspaper El Despertar de los Trabajadores (Celis, 2005), there were no studies that specifically centered on Recabarren’s pedagogical role in the literature I reviewed. And, even though the philosophical-political strands in Recabarren’s thought had been generally identified by Massardo (2001, 2008), Varas (1983), and Loyola Tapia (2007), the philosophical nature of the educational effort that Recabarren proposed and how that effort manifested itself historically were unidentified as such in the literature. Therefore, I conducted a historical and philosophical inquiry based on a close textual analysis of Recabarren’s original works (speeches, newspaper articles (archived), essays, pamphlets, and creative works) with particular attention to their philosophical and educational value.

For this purpose, I identified and acquired all the materials he authored, which are available today in compilations (the originals are archived in the National Library of Chile). I read all of the journal articles (630 articles), originally published in a great number of newspapers (see Appendix A), and that were compiled by Devés and Cruzat in four volumes. I identified every quote that related to education and, or, was of a philosophical nature. I translated every quote that I identified, and I looked for the main themes and subthemes that connected them. I also read all Recabarren’s essays that were published in other compilations, which allowed for a more in-depth thematic analysis of Recabarren’s major ideas. I summarized them in English, and I identified and translated the quotes that were relevant in those texts. I organized the data chronologically in all three core chapters, because it allows the reader to follow more closely the progression in Recabarren’s ideas; it also provides a step-by-step historical overview of the working-class movement.

Luis Emilio Recabarren in the Context of Chilean Historiography

Devés (1991), in addressing the different approaches by historians and historiographers to what is called the history of the enlightened working class in Chile, made a distinction between periods: before and after the military dictatorship (1973–1988). Before the dictatorship, there was an “official” history that identified Chile with democracy. On the other hand, there was a traditional working-class history, which was told by the parties of the working class and that identified the working class as on a steady road to power. The coup of 1973 destroyed both traditions, and historians had to rebuild not only their dispersed sources, but also their approach to a shuttered national history. It is there that Devés (1991) placed the birth of a new history,⁵ which made the “popular groups” (the workers, the peasants, the indigenous people, and the students) its objects of study, both as defiance and resistance and as a way to (re)build identity. It is a critical history, Devés (1991) said, which borrows from sociology and psychology in an effort to reconstruct the history of the country. It is in this context that he placed the study of Recabarren. And it is in this context where we can place most works on Recabarren written in the last decades.

The new historiography has asked historians to distance their research from “official” histories. This, according to Devés, has led to a demystification of the previously accepted versions of Chilean popular identities. In this context, there has been a justified interest in rescuing an image of Recabarren, who, perhaps, had not been portrayed appropriately by the traditional currents. For example, Massardo (2001), in Breaking the Silence, proposed that to read Recabarren ultimately meant to break with the different types of silences to which Chilean history had submitted him. On the one hand, Massardo said, the “official” histories of Chile had ignored Recabarren’s participation or portrayed him as merely a troublemaker. On the other hand, the Communist Party of Chile’s contradictory versions of him were influenced by the CPCh’s own history. Since the 1980s, works on Recabarren (Devés, 1991; Loyola Tapia, 2007; Massardo 2008; Salazar, 1992, 1994, 2003; Varas, 1983) have ostensibly tried to stay clear of either tradition. In so doing, they have not only challenged the prevailing views, but also in some cases created completely new versions of Recabarren. In the first place, they have opened the door for a historiography that, far from ignoring Recabarren, highlights his role in the history of Chile and of the working class. In the second place, they have challenged the images the CPCh has perpetuated. All of them questioned the seamlessness of the historical role the CPCh now attributes to Recabarren. Loyola Tapia (2000, 2007) challenged the mythical figure, and he also has claimed that Recabarren was not an original or sophisticated thinker. Salazar (1992, 1994, 2003) portrayed Recabarren as a sort of “popular caudillo.”⁶ He also claimed that Recabarren remained an “eclectic socialist” instead of becoming communist. By researching the different philosophical currents in Recabarren’s thought in depth, Massardo (2008) and Varas (1983) uncovered a much more diverse universe of thought than the traditional histories gave Recabarren credit for. Massardo (2008) also added previously unresearched information on Recabarren’s relationship with European socialism. Devés (1991) portrayed Recabarren as the highest but last representative of an epoch of working-class history, rather than as the one with whom that history starts.

Although not guided by the aspiration to contradict the “official” histories of the parties, my study will offer a different version of Recabarren’s thought than the ones that have so far been promoted. And far from agreeing with the new historiography’s charge that what we have been confronted with so far is hagiography, I will argue that Recabarren has not been given enough credit as a thinker. In part, this has been so because his works have seldom been studied comprehensively. Therefore, as Massardo (2008) discovered when he set up to study Recabarren, the previous historiography’s portrayals of Recabarren’s thought “had little similarity to Recabarren’s own discourse” (p. 10).

What follows is a review of major Chilean authors, some of them contemporaries, who have written on Recabarren as educator of the working class in Chile. In this process, I have also highlighted the importance of a few of Recabarren’s writings in the context of the education of workers. This review also includes authors who have studied the different philosophical and political influences on his thought, as well as the most recent works on Recabarren that are available.

Portrayals of Recabarren in the Chilean Literature

In Historia del siglo XX chileno [History of the Chilean 20th century], Correa, Figueroa, Jocelyn-Holt, Rolle, and Vicuña (2001) started their review of the 20th century by highlighting the atmosphere around Chile’s Centennial in 1910. Among the fanfare and triumphalism that surrounded the date, they said critical voices made themselves known. Predominant among them, the authors pointed out, was the voice of the “untiring working-class activist Luis Emilio Recabarren” (p. 44) who knew closely “the trials and tribulations of the workers and their families in the saltpeter desert” (p. 44). One of the two documents they highlighted as criticism of the epoch was Ricos y Pobres a través de un siglo de vida republicana [Rich and poor through a century of Republican life, aka Rich and Poor], a major essay of Recabarren’s published in 1910. The authors remarked on the document that “from Recabarren’s perspective, the centennial turns out to be a mere class event” (p. 47). They added that the dissenting authors of the period, such as Recabarren, placed particular emphasis on the subject of education.

Correa et al. (2001) acknowledged the importance of Recabarren at that moment in the context of the so-called Social Question, and they identified him as a “man of socialist convictions” and as a leader with a “militant position,” who, in his Rich and Poor revealed the “people’s uneasiness in regards to the social inequalities” (p. 47). They also recognized in Recabarren someone who reread the history of the previous century as one “built on the base of inequality and not, like the national ideal pretends, on a shared social experience.” (p. 47).

Another author to point to the importance of Rich and Poor was Vitale (1994), who in his Marxist Interpretation of the History of Chile dedicated a chapter to Recabarren. Vitale (1994) pointed to Rich and Poor as a highly unique example (in the Latin America of the early 20th century) of a historical materialist analysis of history (p. 226). In Rich and Poor, he said, Recabarren demystified the notion of a peaceful and democratic Chile through a class analysis of the Chilean state and constitution at the height of the chauvinism brought about by the centennial (pp. 226–227). Contrary to the opinion of other authors (González Vera, 1950/2005; Massardo, 2001, 2008; Varas, 1983), Vitale (1994) tried to prove through Rich and Poor (and later in the chapter through other major essays of Recabarren’s) that in 1910 Recabarren was already a Marxist and was able to provide a Marxist historical analysis to Chilean history and reality at the time of the centennial. Vitale (1994) went further than other authors such as Löwy (1990), who described Recabarren as an organizer and agitator, and posed him as a thinker and as a precursor of other Marxist thinkers in the hemisphere, such as the Peruvian Mariátegui, or the Cuban Mella. Witker Velásquez (1977) proposed something similar, but placed it in the context of an advancement of socialism in the continent and the internationalization of struggle of the Latin American working classes:

Recabarren, Mariátegui and Mella represent a qualitative jump in the gestation and development of the Latin American workers’ movement. They overcome the reformist tendencies of the socialism of Rio de la Plata, and they decidedly join forces with the revolutionary current of the international workers movement. (p. 18)

“Recabarren,” Witker Velásquez (1977) added, “represents the most authentic working-class roots, the most colossal effort in organizing, education and propaganda, and the creation of a true school for the masses” (pp. 16–17).

Like Witker Velásquez, Vitale (1994) identified Recabarren as an intellectual who, unlike other Latin American Marxists, had roots in the working class. That is why, he said, Recabarren’s didactic method...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of tables
• Acknowledgements
• Preface
• Organization of the Book
• List of Abbreviations
• Introduction
• 1 Luis Emilio Recabarren: Educator of the Chilean Working Class
• 2 Biography and Historical Context
• 3 The Civilizing Aspect in Recabarren’s Political and Educational’Vision
• 4 Education for Power or Revolutionary Education: Education of Workers as New Subjects (as Participants in Organizations of the Working Class)
• 5 The Educational and Revolutionary Role of the Working-Class Press
• 6 Recabarren and his Contemporaries
• 7 Conclusion
• Afterword
• Appendix A: Recabarren’s Press Writings by Volumes in Devés and Cruzat’s (1985–1987) Compilations
• Appendix B: Working-Class Newspapers in Chile, 1890–1930
• References
• Index