The Yarur textile factory played an important role in Chilean politics, and was the central role for the uprisings and downfalls in Chilean history. Its first key component was that it represented an economic empire based of paper and cloth that used these resources to gain political power through the aspect of having wealth. The second element of the Yarur factory that gave its importance in Chilean politics was that it represented a monopoly of Chile’s political capital. In Weavers of Revolution, Peter Winn depicts the relationship from a “revolution from above” and “revolution from below” and how the workers of the Yarur textile factory faced an on-going struggle between the working class and the government. Winn focuses his analysis of the Chilean road to socialism around the Yarur textile factory because it is through the modernization and changes of political, economic, and industrial policies that ultimately led to the workers movement to bring about a revolution.
The first turning point in hope for the Chilean road to socialism was that of the election of Salvador Allende as president, which gave many Yarur workers the belief that a ‘workers government’ was on their side. “For the first time, a self-proclaimed ‘workers government’ ruled Chile, dominated by the Left and Pledged to socialist revolution” (Winn, 53). Allende’s role as president gave identity to the Yarur workers that they were being represented and because of so, their struggles of working in the factory conditions set by Amador Yarur would come to an end. This identification with Allende as being represented by there own voice became the first stepping-stone to the demand for socialization of the factory. “The election of a ‘Popular Government’ was a signal...
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...r had embraced a counterrevolution of economic and political order. The greatest symbolism of the fall of the government under Salvador Allende was the return of repression on the workers at the mill.
As noted by Peter Winn on page 251, that on January 24, 1974 Amador Yarur had retuned to control of the mill, which, marked the alliance of military forces with capitalism and restored ‘discipline and order’ back at the mill. The representation of Don Amador back in control of the mill and returning to his old ways of running the mill, ultimately, represented the end of the worker’s dreams that had been part of the various struggles and accomplishments led throughout the push to Chile’s road for socialism.
Works Cited
Winn, Peter. Weavers of Revolution: The Yarur Workers and Chile’s Road to Socialism. New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986. Print.
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