Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Im langen Schatten des Nationalsozialismus: Faschistische Bewegungen in Chile zwischen der Weltwirtschaftskrise und dem Ende des Zweiten Weltkriegs

2007; Duke University Press; Volume: 87; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1215/00182168-2006-161

1527-1900

Corinne A. Pernet,

Memory, violence, and history

Safely removed in time from the military dictatorships that dominated many Latin American countries in the 1970s and 1980s, historians have taken up the study of right-wing movements with vigor. Recently, authors such as Sandra McGee Deutsch, Margaret Power, and Brian Loveman have contributed novel analyses of various aspects of the Chilean Right. In Im langen Schatten des Nationalsozialismus, Marcus Klein aims to provide a comprehensive overview of the fascist movements that emerged between the Great Depression and the end of World War II, focusing on the Movimiento Nacional Socialista (MNS), led by Jorge González von Marées. Klein details the many twists and turns in the history of the MNS and the organizations that followed it, paying special attention to their ideology and political actions.Klein’s examination of the writings and speeches of González von Marées indicates that the long-time jefe was more opportunist than ideologue. In the early years of the MNS, the Chilean National Socialists (Nacistas) attempted to profit from the stature of the German Nazi Party — copying its name and defending Nazi policies and anti-Semitism. After the Chilean press attacked the MNS as an instrument of the German government, the party attempted to distance itself from Germany, emphasizing Chilean nationalism instead. The elitist and corporatist MNS garnered only limited support, however, so the party redefined itself as a vehicle for antioligarchic fascism. In yet another twist, González von Marées even swore off fascism altogether in 1938, changing the party name to the Vanguardia Popular Socialista and courting the leftist Popular Front. Many old-time Nacistas rejected this change of direction and instead founded the Partido Nacional Fascista, an openly antidemocratic and anti-Semitic party that survived barely two years. Klein is certainly right to state that the MNS and its follower organizations never achieved broad constituencies, but its limited electoral success might belie a broader influence for this violent fringe group.Klein provides interesting material on the fascist current within the broader stream of right-wing thinking. Remarkably, Nacista candidates received one-third of all votes in the student-body elections at the University of Chile in 1938, and long-time rector Juan Gómez Millas led the fascist party in the early forties. Unfortunately, Klein does not comment on the unwillingness of the Chilean judiciary to take measures against the Nacistas or on MNS alliances with both former dictator Carlos Ibañez and conservatives like Eduardo Cruz Coke (pp. 166, 173). In the nine-page epilogue that takes the story from 1945 to the present, the author points out that old-guard fascists found a new political home in Carlos Ibañez’s Partido Agrario Laborista and that the fascist group Patria y Libertad did the dirty work for Allende’s foes in the early 1970s. Lamentably, the section is too short to delineate the impact of fascist ideologues on the authoritarian Right that eventually propelled Pinochet to power.Throughout his account, Klein provides interesting tidbits on the party’s appeal. Unfortunately, he only briefly touches on the internal life of the party — the meetings, the songs, the social initiatives, and other activities that must have acted as a cohesive factor in view of its frequently changing ideology. He notes, for instance, that the possibility of violent encounters with leftist militants was apparently attractive to the “hot-headed young men” who formed the backbone of the party (p. 174). He also quotes magazine articles that spoke to the party’s quasireligious appeal and mentions the group’s highly conservative gender politics, but his narrative focus on political maneuverings hampers further expansion on these interesting topics.One of Klein’s main claims about the Nacistas is that — contrary to the opinions of contemporaries and much of the literature — they did not receive material aid from the German government. He might well be right, as the Nacistas’ insistence on the integration of ethnic Germans into the Chilean state made for tensions between the MNS and the Chilean NSDAP. Nevertheless, the connections Klein does mention (allotting space to the MSN in NSDAP-supported newspapers, procuring an invitation for a party notable to tour Germany for eight months) point to friendly relations at least until 1936. That a 1936 Chilean secret-police report did not provide incontrovertible proof for direct German support might also have to do with president Arturo Alessandri’s stance: he viewed the MNS as a valuable ally in the fight against communism and refused to rein in the party’s violent tactics until the attempted coup in September 1938. Klein also posits that anti-Semitism was not an integral part of the party’s ideology. But it is striking that the party engaged in anti-Semitic attacks throughout its history, even though most other facets of its ideology changed. If González did not place anti-Semitism at the forefront of his party’s beliefs, it is perhaps because he realized such views had a limited appeal in Chile.Based on research in a number of archives, Klein’s concise book delivers a solid account of the politics of the Chilean fascists. Its useful chronology points the reader to important events, but an index would have been helpful. This monograph opens up avenues for further investigation, especially concerning the relations between the fascists and the Chilean Right. In that sense, we hope that the book will soon be translated into Spanish or English.