Unitary Popular Action Movement

The Movimiento de Acción Popular Unitaria, or better known by its acronym MAPU, was a Chilean left-wing political party founded on May 19, 1969, by Rodrigo Ambrosio, which from its beginnings was linked to the peasantry and the university student movements.

It was born as a result of a division within the Christian Democratic Party (PDC), when a rebel group of militants expressed disagreement with the party's ideological and political guidelines in the context of the presidential election that would take place held in November 1970. This group publicly declared itself Marxist, formed its own political group, and later joined the coalition of left-wing parties called Unidad Popular (UP), which led to the government of the socialist Salvador Allende.

MAPU suffered a split in 1971, after a national plenary session where two currents were revealed: those who wanted to declare the community purely Marxist and other followers of a more traditional/democratic current, who finally abandoned the party and form the Christian Left (IC) in October 1971.

History

PDC output

The final years of the 1960s were characterized by the development of a sharp polarization of political forces. The strong ideologization of the main communities and the arduous struggle in defense of the global plans raised by each sector helped to accelerate this centrifugal vortex. Within this context the origin of the Movimiento de Acción Popular Unitaria (MAPU) was located, when In 1969 a national meeting of the Christian Democratic Party (PDC) was held, which was to resolve the party's position in the next presidential election.

On that occasion, the members of the party revealed their different positions, thus appearing the "rebels" who were in favor of an understanding with the Popular Action Front (FRAP) (and who faced the situation in which they lived within of the PDC and already demonstrating discontent since the middle of the government of President Eduardo Frei Montalva, due to the "pro-North American" policy carried out in that party by the DC National Board that as a political vote decided to support the aforementioned thesis, they decided to create new political movements, mainly made up of members of DC Youth).

On the other hand, there was the "third-party" sector that established its perspective stating, "Christian democracy must be constituted as a left-wing party, whose immediate historical mission is to replace the capitalist regime". the junta, on May 5, 1969, senator Rafael Agustín Gumucio resigned from the PDC, who was later joined by the then young leaders of the Peasant Department of the party: Andrés Tapia, Gonzalo Cáceres and Jaime Gazmuri, as well as senator Alberto Jerez, and the deputies Julio Silva Solar and Vicente Sota. Likewise, there were other militants such as: Enrique Correa, Carlos Montes, Jacques Chonchol, José Miguel Insulza, Eduardo Aquevedo, Luis Penaglia, Jaime Estévez, Eduardo Rojas, Tomás Moulian, Gonzalo Ojeda, Samuel Bello, Juan Ruz, Omar Jofré Fuentes, Gladys Goede Gars, Luis Quezada, Francisco Mansilla, Fernando Martínez Urrutia, Augusto Moreno, Jorge Abbott, among many others.

On the occasion of his resignation, Senator Rafael Agustín Gumucio in his resignation letter stated:

"The last Board revealed the invincible resistance of the forces that dominate the party to seek understanding with the left to produce the unity of the people. Although the vote presented by the Bureau of Senator Fuentealba raises this unity on the basis of a candidacy of our man, this was rejected. Not even the fact that this thesis was that of Tomic, whom the Board wanted to proclaim as a candidate, made possible his acceptance. It would be difficult to conceive of a more favourable circumstance to it, however it was defeated. This has led me to the conviction that in our party forces that have already nothing in common with what I think have been consolidated. The Board's agreement reveals a really alarming indifference to the serious right-wing chance of returning to the government and along with that a profound rejection of seeking conditions that could approach the left." (...). The most advanced currents of Christian thought are no longer collected by us and indeed more than an instrument of the revolutionary change of society, we are an instrument of social status, an administering force of the system, a guarantee of the established order."

Foundation

All of them formed the so-called Unitary Popular Action Movement. Since its foundation, on May 19, 1969, MAPU established its ideological position, where, "Marxism comes to be considered as a source of inspiration in which one must plunge creatively, using all those categories that are instrumental for the construction revolutionary, (...).". Prior to their official meeting as a constituted party, they developed contacts with organizations inspired by liberation theology such as the Young Church.^{[citation required]}

People's Unity

In August 1969, MAPU held its «constituent congress». There two antagonistic positions faced each other, one that aspired to reach a consensus with the Socialist Party (PS); the Communist Party (PC) and the Radical Party (PR) and another current in favor of not risking the action of the movement in the 1970 presidential election. The current willing to be part of the Popular Unity (UP) was chosen, and Jacques Chonchol was elected as Secretary General, later he was nominated as a presidential candidate, but he resigned and supported the candidacy of the socialist Salvador Allende.

After this first congress was held, MAPU emerged as a worker and proletarian vanguard group, which produced a split that led to the founding of a new party in 1971, the Christian Left (IC).

The «second national congress», was held in December 1972, on which occasion it confirmed the line adopted in the previous one, but once again antagonistic positions were glimpsed within the community, on the one hand there was a moderate tendency pro- communist led by Jaime Gazmuri, and on the other, a sector that leaned towards an ultra-left line and independent of the international blocs and very critical of the USSR, under the leadership of Eduardo Aquevedo, Kalki Glauser and Óscar Guillermo Garretón. He triumphed. the group headed by Garretón, who was elected as Secretary General, at the proposal of Eduardo Aquevedo, and the latter became the first Deputy Secretary General.

The Gazmuri sector did not accept this decision and proclaimed itself as general secretary as well, this fact produced important disputes within MAPU. Both sectors disputed the name of the party, and "the court ruled that the sector of Garretón could legitimately use the name of the litigation. Then, the Gazmuri sector was renamed MAPU Obrero Campesino (MAPU/OC)".

In the parliamentary elections of March 1973, he participated as part of the Confederation of Democracy (CODE), and obtained 90,700 votes and two deputies elected: Alejandro Bell Jara and Oscar Guillermo Garretón.

MAPU Peasant Worker

Flag of the Master Campesino.

Around March 1973, the MAPU divided into two currents: the MAPU itself, which declared itself to be a more radical Marxist-Leninist, led by Óscar Guillermo Garretón and Eduardo Aquevedo, and the MAPU Obrero Campesino (MAPU/OC or MOC)., of more moderate tendencies and related to the Communist Party and the Radical Party, maintaining that the government of Salvador Allende was "the main revolutionary conquest achieved by the popular and democratic struggle". The MAPU/OC was led by Jaime Gazmuri and Enrique Correa. It distanced itself from more radical sectors of the left, and kept two of its militants as ministers in Allende's cabinet: Fernando Flores and Juan Carlos Concha. Both sectors continued participating in the UP until the military coup of September 11, 1973. At that time its national headquarters was located at Santa Lucía 162, later occupied as a detention and torture center by the military dictatorship.

Dictatorship and secrecy

When the coup took place, the MAPU was declared outlawed and many of its militants were persecuted, imprisoned and deported. From the clandestine, a deep process of review and self-criticism began to take place, regarding participation of the MAPU during the government of the UP. Between 1975 and 1976, the UP was still the central point of the politics of its parties. These are years of partisan shake-ups that are gradually rearranging the forces within each organization. For example, Eugenio Tironi, then a member of the internal leadership of the party who succeeded Garretón after his asylum in the Colombian embassy, and headed by Carlos Montes, arrived in Europe from the interior. Said internal leadership was made up of, Carlos Ortúzar, Guillermo del Valle, Víctor Barrueto and Fernando Echeverría, among others, who advocated a national political solution, via social mobilization, emphasizing the defense of popular interests, uniting with socialist sectors. Tironi led the mission to expel the party to a faction headed by Eduardo Aquevedo (MAPU's first undersecretary) and Gonzalo Ojeda, who represented an important sector of MAPU militants in exile and in the interior, and whose politics made reconstruction efforts difficult, according to the leadership of the UP, since they proposed the formation of a broad opposition front that would group the Chilean left from the UP to the MIR. This action was the beginning of an important ideological turn of the MAPU.

From the inside, and as a result of a strong self-criticism of their participation in the Allende government, the new leaders who took office in hiding, such as Carlos Montes (Cristián), Víctor Jeame Barrueto (Tito), Guillermo del Valle (Zúñiga), Rodrigo González (Javier), Guillermo Ossandón (Pizarro), Ricardo Brodsky (Mica), Jaime Manuschevich (Ismael) and Claudio Vásquez.^{[citation required]} In 1980, since the unity of the socialists was not achieved and there are strong indications that the PCCh intends to initiate the armed struggle, opting to participate together with other moderate sectors of Chilean socialism, such as Ricardo Lagos or Ricardo Núñez, in the renewal of the socialist ideology national, significantly influencing the formation of the Socialist Convergence (CS) and later the Socialist Bloc (BS), which facilitated understanding with the political center and the creation of a vast anti-dictatorial democratic social movement.

MAPU Lautaro

Flag of the Lautaro MAPU.

Within MAPU, a minority group, headed by Guillermo Ossandón, opposed this orientation and marginalized from the new politics, forming a Maoist-oriented group called MAPU Lautaro in 1983, which carried out violent actions against the dictatorship military. This group of militants —which had been formed in Cuba, following Garretón's instructions—^{[citation required]} stood in complete disagreement with the new ideological and political line that MAPU assumed, with a marked socialist and renovating definition. Likewise, MAPU Lautaro raised as a political ideology the overthrow of the military dictatorship, through 'popular rebellion', and a 'mobilization of the masses'. He maintained that to achieve this end, "combative mobilization, armed struggle, insurgency, and mass rebellion" were necessary. According to MAPU Lautaro there was no other alternative. He rejected the so-called National Agreement for the Transition to Full Democracy, the dialogue and the politics of pressure.

With the return to democracy in 1990, this group continued to carry out violent actions, until it was dismantled by the investigative services.

Return to activity

In 1985, in the so-called "Congress of Unity", held clandestinely in Punta de Tralca, the sectors of Garretón and part of the renewed MAPU/OC (of Gazmuri), were reunified. He took office as the new secretary General Víctor Barrueto and as Undersecretary General Claudio Vásquez. Meanwhile, the new Political Commission was made up of Enrique Correa, Óscar Guillermo Garretón, Alejandro Bell, Carlos Montes, Guillermo del Valle, Jaime Cataldo, Eduardo Arrieta and Rodrigo González.

On September 8, 1986, he was one of the signatories of the document Bases of Sustainability of the Democratic Regime, which consisted of an extension and deepening of the National Agreement for the Transition to Full Democracy of 1985, and that would give rise in November 1986 to the National Democratic Agreement, a short-lived political coalition.

In 1988, most of its militants contributed to the formation of the Party for Democracy (PPD), and then in December 1989 (in the unity act of the PSCh) an important sector, headed by a part of the leadership and leaders, joined the Socialist Party of Chile (PS). The MAPU militancy and cadres are actually distributed almost equally between both parties (PPD and PS). Since the 1990s, the presence of the former MAPU continues in force in Chilean politics and debate, through various leaders and intellectuals in government instances, the National Congress, NGOs, and the academic sector.

Although most of its former militants were linked to movements of the Coalition of Parties for Democracy, a group decided to continue with the party and ran alongside the Communist Party (PC) in the 1993 presidential and parliamentary elections.

Ideology

Programmatic principles

Since Salvador Allende won the 1970 presidential election, MAPU began to reconsider its position in this new scenario. Different sectors promoted the idea of redefining MAPU's objectives within the framework of medium- and long-term participation in the process of the Chilean road to socialism in the country.

In 1970, two important "congresses" were also held, one at the regional level, held in May of that year at the State Technical University and another with national characteristics, held at the Arte Normandie cinema in October. Of these two instances, MAPU postulated the following programmatic axes:

• "To grow the collectivity within its cellular structure, of motion of cadres, that is, to broaden its base of support without disstructing the logic that would allow it to act as "popular vanguard".
• "To guide its political action to liquidate the defined "fundamental enemies of the Chilean people", that is, imperialism, monopolies, latifundio, etcetera."
• To achieve this, "through broad political alliances that had the basis of the proletariat, but also sectors of the small and medium-sized bourgeoisie that aspire to democratic and national development and whose interests were drowned by the great imperialist capital."

The ideological definition of the party was not exempt from setbacks, as it caused the division of the party, but during the second congress in 1972, MAPU defined itself as Marxist-Leninist, assuming the Marxist doctrine as dogma. According to In the words of Rodrigo Ambrosio, "it was inconceivable a leftist party that did not embrace this analysis tool".

Authorities

Senators

Deputies

Election results

Parliamentary elections