The History of Chilean Fascism
by Zoltanous
Introduction
In the early 1900s, Chile underwent rapid industrialization and urbanization, leading to new challenges and potential solutions. During this time, various socialist and nationalist movements emerged, challenging the established conservative liberal way of life. The economic crisis of 1929 and political conflicts raised questions about the legitimacy of capitalism and liberal democracy. Nazismo, a nationalist party with messianic aspirations, emerged as a response to these challenges and aimed to find a balance between traditional and modern thought in Chile. The traditional elite faced challenges from multiple sides, including liberal ideologies that were gaining traction worldwide.
The History of Chilean Fascism
Jose Gonzales von Marees, also known as "El Jefe," was a prominent leader of the Chilean National Socialist movement (MNS), commonly referred to as "Nazismo,” which operated from 1932 to 1938. He played a pivotal role as the creator, thinker, and leader of one of the few organic fascist movements in Latin America, alongside the Brazilian Integralists and Mexican Synarchists.
Born on April 4th, 1900, in Santiago, Chile, Gonzales had a Chilean father and a German mother. He attended the National Institute, where his mother enrolled him to receive a Chilean education, although he briefly studied German and attended a German school. Among his peers at the institute were notable figures in Chilean politics during the 1900s, including Ramón Salinas, president of the South American vapor company, Hernan Alessandri, son of the current president in the 1930s, Enrique Mata Figueroa, a lawyer and liberal deputy, and Emilio Phillips, a surgeon and painter who would later co-found Nazismo with Jorge and maintain a lasting friendship. Another close friend was Otto Kron Schleck, an attorney and future nazista who also shared a strong bond with Gonzales. In fact, Otto Kron Schleck would go on to author the main songs of the Nazismo Movement.
The MNS anthem
Within the household, Spanish was spoken at the behest of his mother, while Gonzales also conversed in German and studied the language with a professor. In fact, his family, the Von Marees, adopted German as their official language at home. Gonzales did not come from a political background, nor was he particularly social, as his nephew Rodrigo Aliende noted. However, despite these potential shortcomings, he worked on cultivating his personality as he understood that a movement like Nazismo required a charismatic leader, much like a figure akin to Hitler.
In the mid-1920s, during his youth, Jorge Gonzales Von Marees joined a nationalist group called T, which stood for Tenacity, Enthusiasm, and Abnegation in English. Within the group, he was known as a legionary. Throughout his upbringing, Gonzales held a strong admiration for German culture. Despite being deeply influenced by German culture, he found it ironic that his own German mother taught him to embrace his Chilean identity completely, although this did not diminish the German characteristics he inherited from her. Gonzales was enamored with his German heritage and romanticized German culture, while simultaneously recognizing his Castilian roots.
Gonzales delved into the writings of third-positionist thinkers, particularly in the realm of the Conservative Revolution. He wrote and read anti-liberal and pro-nationalist propaganda, becoming an admirer of Hitler's ability to rally people behind a greater cause. Like Jose Antonio Primo de Rivera, Gonzales studied law for approximately three years and was a lawyer himself. Influential thinkers who shaped Gonzales's ideology, leading him to become El Jefe, included Gustave Le Bon, author of The Crowd: A Study of The Popular Mind, and Oswald Spengler, author of The Decline of The West and a proponent of Prussian Socialism.
Carlos Keller, a Chilean writer and associate of Gonzalez von Marees, recalled the influence of General Francisco Javier Diaz Valderrama, a retired military leader who was fascinated by the Nazi party and Adolf Hitler. Diaz, who had lived in Europe and had experience in organizing military forces, sought to replicate German national socialism in Chile. Diaz approached Gonzalez von Marees with the idea of creating a Chilean version of the National Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP). However, Gonzalez believed that a mere imitation of the German model would be fruitless. He emphasized the need to build a new political force in Chile based on its own national identity. While Gonzales drew inspiration from international thinkers, he also found influence in Chilean intellectuals such as Francisco Encina, author of Our Inferior Economy, Alberto Edwards, and Nicolas Palacios. These individuals collectively formed the foundation of Jorge Gonzales's ideological framework.
Pictures of Jorge Gonzales
Gonzalez emphasized the need to react not to restore a bygone past or maintain an unacceptable present but to forge a grandiose future that elevates our nationality to unprecedented heights. In his book, The Worker Problem In Chile, he highlighted the challenges faced by the new working class in the country, which bore the full weight of social-economic upheavals caused by modern capitalism. The working class suffered from profound decay and misery, largely ignored by the ruling class and lacking even the most basic morals and intellectual agreements.
The MNS made it clear that their socialist ideology differed from Marxist ideas, which advocated for the collective ownership of property under the dictatorship of the proletariat. Jorge Gonzalez argued in 1934 that fascism, instead of adhering to this doctrinal conception of socialism, presented a more humane alternative that went beyond mere speculation and aligned with Marx's theories.
The MNS flag
The MNS movement was strongly influenced by Nazi ideology and sought to establish a Chilean version of National Socialism, drawing inspiration from Adolf Hitler's Nazi regime in Germany. It emphasized nationalist, authoritarian, and anti-communist principles. The MNS openly aligned itself with Nazi Germany and adopted many elements of Nazi symbolism and rhetoric, including the use of the Hakenkreuz and the Nazi salute. The Movement was also anti-Semitic, and supported Hitler's model as something to emulate.
Nazismo, as El Jefe affirmed, takes a realistic approach to the issue of property. While the Nazistas initially considered rejecting private property, they ultimately recognized its significance as a cornerstone of Western culture. Denying private property would result in its destruction. Therefore, Nazismo aimed to dismantle the liberal concept of private property, which is an individual and private right with limitations set by other individuals and the exercise of the same right.
In line with this perspective, Jorge Gonzalez criticized the liberal conception of property, arguing that liberalism only requires property to be acquired legally without considering its social consequences. The liberal view reduces property to the spoils of the struggle for life, where the strongest acquire it for their own enjoyment and can do as they please with it. In contrast, within the fascist ideas embraced by the MNS, property is seen as an institution with essential social purposes regulated by the state. The individual's enjoyment of property is not an end in itself but is significant only to the extent that it benefits society.
Fascist Socialism, therefore, affirms the primacy of society over the individual. The state plays a fundamental role in directing, guiding, and nationalizing activities. It must repress parasitic capitalism and ensure that money functions as a tool for progress. The state must protect workers and assist the destitute. In essence, the MNS, as socialists, strongly supported the idea of social function. The individual is not an isolated entity but rather a part of a national community that represents the objective toward which individual efforts are directed, stimulated, and empowered by public owners. Individuals work for the betterment of the community. One of the core principles of Chilean Nazismo was its anti-democratic stance and its call for the restoration of aristocracy. It aimed to create a populist movement that appealed to the new social sectors and established a mesocratic political base. Nazismo sought to integrate the nation with the people, attracting large masses through renouncing the oligarchy and condemning communism.
According to Emiliano Valenzuela's book titled La Generación Fusilada.
“The mystical image of the leader managed to establish itself coherently in his environment, for example in the performance with which González managed his actions within the movement. He was opposed to communism and the arbitrariness of the right-wing government of that time. The reasons for joining the national socialist movement were centered on its social and spiritual proposals in its speech of becoming a censor of the wealthy classes, of combating the parasitic capitalist, etc. The National Socialist Movement, although it proposed breaking with the political vices of the past, was offered as a renewing idea in terms of doing politics, it was also the re-offering of an old conservative discourse.”
— Emiliano Valenzuela, La Generación Fusilada
The MNS party logo
The MNS did support the concept of a corporate state. A corporate state is a form of governance where different sectors of the economy and society are organized into corporatist groups that collaborate with the government in decision-making processes. These corporatist groups typically represent various interests, such as business, labor, agriculture, and other sectors.
Regarding corporatism and Nazismo, the MNS did not extensively elaborate on its application of the corporatist model. However, it attracted the attention of a significant group in Chile as a Third position between Liberalism and Marxism. Corporatism is seen as a system of popular representation and the organization of economic and social forces. The MNS believes that the production forces should be directly represented by genuine organizations before the state to assert their interests.
In September 1938, Thomas Allende presented a plan of corporate principles that the movement aspired to follow, consisting of two steps:
Free Corporate Action: This entailed the establishment of professional organizations tasked with implementing the envisioned framework of Nazismo. The process of transition was not intended to be marked by violence, but rather viewed as the organic culmination of a new societal structure in which political parties and class divisions would be allocated their respective roles.
Corporate Associations: This dynamic system endeavors to integrate citizens into both economic and political spheres through associations governed by the Nazismo State. The Nazismo State acknowledges corporate associations as an inherent aspect of societal progress and, while upholding the right to associate, it ensures the pursuit of the collective welfare while preventing the dominance of particular interest groups.
The NSDAP’s initial contact with the MNS came to an end when the Nazis criticized the MNS’s perceived lack of commitment to anti-Semitism. However, certain individual members, notably Miguel Serrano, continued to exhibit allegiance to Adolf Hitler. In the 1937 parliamentary elections, the MNS managed to secure three deputies, representing approximately 3.5% of the votes. Subsequently, in 1938, the party merged with the Unión Socialista to form the Alianza Popular Libertadora (APL). The APL lent its support to General Carlos Ibáñez del Campo's presidential campaign in the same year. However, a failed fascist coup, known as the Seguro Obrero massacre, occurred in September 1938, leading Ibáñez to oppose the National Socialists' endorsement of Gustavo Ross. Consequently, indirect support was extended to Pedro Aguirre Cerda, the candidate of the Radical Party, who narrowly emerged as the victor in the election.
As a result of the failed fascist coup and the subsequent repression, the MNS was eventually banned. In 1939, a faction of the APL established a splinter group called the Vanguardia Popular Socialista, which, unfortunately, failed to achieve any significant impact and was disbanded in 1941. Meanwhile, during the 1941 legislative elections, the Vanguardia Popular Socialista secured 2.5% of the vote and managed to elect two deputies. On the other hand, the APL merged with the Agrarian Party in 1945, leading to the formation of the Partido Agrario Laborista (PAL).
Police arresting a member of the Vanguardia Popular Socialista
Jorge Gonzalez (center) with members of the Vanguardia Popular Socialista in 1940
After the failure of Vanguardia Popular Socialista, Jorge Gonzalez found himself as a tarnished figure in the eyes of his former followers. Joining the Liberal party only added to this perception, as he was seen as betraying their cause. Eventually, he became a strong advocate for the Liberal party and even rose to the position of general secretary. However, he resigned in September 1951 to campaign for Arturo Matte Larrain, who had connections to the oligarchy and was married to Arturo Alessandri's daughter. Matte Larrain was defeated by Ibáñez in the 1952 presidential election, leading Jorge Gonzalez to completely withdraw from politics. His association with the Popular Front and later the Liberals made him undesirable to his previous allies, the ¡bañistas, and he was excluded from their government between 1952 and 1958. In 1958, Jorge Gonzalez underwent his first brain tumor operation, and four years later, after a second operation, he passed away at the age of 62 on March 14, 1962.
Several former MNS who transitioned into populism stood up to defend their previous political affiliations. Among them was Oscar Jiménez, a member of the PAL and a cabinet minister under Carlos Ibáñez and the Marxist Salvador Allende. Jiménez, along with others, emphasized the socialism of the MNS, which they portrayed as a distinct form of leftism native to Chile, differentiating it from the right-wing Liberal and Conservative parties associated with the upper class. They also attempted to distance the MNS from Nazism by falsely claiming that the Nazismo had never been anti-Semitic. While acknowledging the involvement of violence, these former MNS members argued that the clashes between young militants in the 1930s were not driven by homicidal intent, although this assertion was debatable.
Sergio Recabarren Valenzuela, a PAL cabinet minister under Ibáñez in 1948 and a self-declared leftist, characterized the MNS as the local embodiment of the national and popular struggle, describing it as the "most virile and integral" manifestation. He argued that Nazismo, opposing the alliance between the local oligarchy and international capital, shared some similarities with the Communists. Recabarren emphasized the MNS's focus on "morality," economic nationalism, and sympathy for the working class.
Another noteworthy figure is Gómez Millas, the founder of the Partido Unión Nacionalista de Chile, which aligned itself with Nazism and Fascist Italy, attracting members with similar ideological inclinations. However, the party dissolved after World War II. Among the former members, Jorge Prat emerged as a prominent figure. He published a weekly newspaper called Estanquero from 1949 to 1954, served as a cabinet minister in Carlos Ibáñez del Campo's government, and made an unsuccessful bid for the presidency of Chile in 1964.
To gain further insight into the fate of fascism in Chile, I recommend reading the following article:
