Argentine and Chilean Anarchist Exiles and the Making of Peru’s Anarchist Movement, 1900-1919

• In Event: Alien, Subversive, Recalcitrant: Migrants, Exiles, and Cultural Brokers in Latin American Transnational Anarchist Movements, 1880s-1940s

Abstract

In contrast to other South American anarchist movements, anarchism in Peru was overwhelmingly an autochthonous movement. Conspicuously absent from Peru’s anarchist movement were large numbers of European working-class migrants that filled the ranks of anarchist movements in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Uruguay. Despite the lack of intense European immigration and the attendant formation of transatlantic networks, (which José Moya has argued were indispensable for developing and sustaining robust South American anarchist movements), the anarchists in Peru emerged as a vital political, social, and cultural force supported by urban and rural workers, artisans, indigenous peasants, and dissident intellectuals. Historical studies of Peruvian anarchism correctly emphasize its ‘home-grown’ character but also gloss over the role of Latin American anarchist migrants in the formation and development of Peruvian anarchism. This paper examines the influence of four anarchist exiles on Peru’s anarchist movement: José Briggs (Anglo-Chilean), Luis Olea Castillo (Chilean), Inocencio Lombardozzi (Argentine), and Daniel Antuniano (Argentine). Residing in Peru from two years to a decade, these four men drew on their personal involvement in and ties with anarchist movements in Argentina and Chile to influence Peru’s anarchist press and discursive practices, countercultural politics, worker-peasant alliances, and organizational structures. It will highlight their role as go-betweens linking Peru’s anarchist movement with its counterparts in Argentina and Chile as well as their contribution to the construction of a transnational anarchist network along the Pacific coast and the Southern Cone and the promotion of Latin American anarchist and labor solidarity.

Author

• Steven J Hirsch, Washington University in St. Louis